Congress, Raja and Kanimozhi - Don't rejoice - you can still be convicted.

Congress, Raja and Kanimozhi - Don't rejoice - you can still be convicted.

After the shocking acquittal of all the 17 accused in the 2G scam case by the CBI court, the Congress and the DMK have gone into celebration mode.

A word of caution to them - just go through the Jayalalitha Disproportionate Assets case and you will find that verdict of one court is upturned by another only to be upturned yet again by the Supreme Court.

In the Jayalalitha case, a judgement on 27 September 2014 in the Special Court convicted all of the accused — namely Jayalalithaa, Sasikala Natarajan, Ilavarasi and V. N. Sudhakaran — and sentenced them to four years simple imprisonment. Jayalalithaa was fined ₹100 crore (equivalent to ₹112 crore or US$17 million in 2016) and the other three were fined ₹10 crore (equivalent to ₹11 crore or US$1.7 million in 2016) each.

In May 2015, the Karnataka High Court overturned the trial court's verdict, acquitting all those accused of all charges. This paved the way for Jayalalithaa's return to power as Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu on 23 May 2015.

On 14 February 2017, the Supreme Court of India over-ruled the Karnataka High Court. Sasikala and the other accused were convicted and sentenced to four years imprisonment, as well as being fined ₹10 crore (US$1.6 million) each.

The case against Jayalalithaa was abated because she had died but fines were levied on her properties.

So the moral of the story is that if the CBI files an appeal in the High Court and presents a water tight case, all those acquitted now can still be punished because this acquittal looks to be on technical grounds and if that one missing link is plugged then don't be surprised if all acquitted now are convicted later.

© Dayanand Nene