The Supreme Court on Friday questioned the decision of the Tamil Nadu government for fresh investigation into the disproportionate assets case against chief minister J. Jayalalithaa under trial in a special court in Bengaluru for the past eight years and now at the fag end of its proceedings.

Though the detailed hearing on the Tamil Nadu government’s petition against the Karnataka high court order quashing the fresh investigation order was posted for Tuesday, a bench of Justices Dalveer Bhandari and Dipak Misra put some probing questions to the government counsel whether the whole exercise of reinvestigation was not aimed at “frustrating” the on going trial.
While state counsel Ashok Desai said it was not so, the bench asked “How can an order for reinvestigation be issued after eight years. And how the chief secretary had attended a meeting on June 3, 2011 approving a decision in this regard.”
Mr Desai, however, said that the chief secretary had attended the meeting in the capacity of the head of the vigilance department.
“It is very rare that a highest body will take such a decision after 8 years in a matter in which the trial is almost concluded,” the bench observed while deferring the hearing as the copy of the government’s petition was not served on DMK leader K. Anbazhagan on whose petition the top court had transferred the case to Bengaluru eight years ago.