The day that he retired, Justice C R Kumaraswamy, who overturned J Jayalalithaa’s conviction in the disproportionate assets case, was accused of amassing immovable property in violation of the law.
According to a Deccan Chronicle report, a group of RTI activists chose Justice Kumaraswamy’s day of retirement to allege that he had been allotted a flat by the Karnataka Housing Board in 1997 when he was district and sessions judge in Kolar, which was then allegedly cancelled by him in exchange for an independent house in Mysuru.
According to RTI documents obtained by advocate ARS Kumar, Justice Kumaraswamy’s wife M N Nagarathnamma was allotted a Bengaluru Development Authority site in 2005; and he had also been allotted a flat by the Karnataka Judicial Housing Building Co-Operative Society Limited in 2006, allegedly in violation of the House Building Co-Operative Society.
Justice Chikka Rachappa Kumaraswamy hails from Malavalli in Mandya district, and Jayalalithaa, at the centre of the case that made him famous, was born in Melukote, another village in the same district.
Justice Kumaraswamy obtained a degree in law from a college in Bengaluru and practiced as a lawyer for 12 years, taking on both civil and criminal cases, as also those involving labour.
After passing the district judge examination in 1995, he served as a district judge in several parts of the state including Bengaluru, Kolar, Ballari. He was made a judge of the Karnataka High Court in 2005 and two years later, his tenure was made permanent.
A senior High Court lawyer quoted by Business Standard, said that Justice Kumaraswamy had a reputation of being an upright judge, and was also well-respected for his work.
But with the Jayalalithaa case, Justice Kumaraswamy’s judgment came as a shock, causing many to dissect the judgment and point out glaring “errors” in the judgment.
Several news reports have pointed out that Justice Kumaraswamy heard the case for 41 consecutive working days, and that he had sought the help of trusted court employees when dealing with the voluminous documents pertaining to Jayalalithaa’s case.