A Division Bench comprising Justices G T Nanavati and S P Kurdukar also reserved its judgement on the SLP by Jayalalitha challenging the constitutional validity of Section 3(1) of the Prevention of Corruption Act (PCA) under which the state government through two notifications in April 1997 had set up three special courts to exclusively try cases against her.

The Centre's notification of February 5, which reallocated cases against Jayalalitha from the three special judges to other judges, was challenged by a consumer activist organisation `Voice' saying it amounted to interference in the powers of judiciary.

Counsel for Jayalalitha, senior advocate K K Venugopal, while defending the Central governmentnotification, said the notifications were issued malafide by the Karunanidhi government to persecute Jayalalitha, who is his political rival.

He said Section 3(1) gave arbitrary powers to the state government to pick and choose cases against political rivals and the setting up of three courts to conduct a highly publicised trial was an example of political rivalry being settled through malafide exercise of powers.

Attorney General Soli J Sorabjee created a mild flutter yesterday when he said that though the Centre had taken a stand before the apex court that it would exercise its powers under Section 4(2) of the Act for reallocation of cases in consultation with the Madras High Court, "apparently it did not receive any communication from the chief justice."

However, he stoutly defended the constitutional validity of both the Central notification and Section 3(1) of the Act but did not comment on the validity of the state government notifications saying it was for the state government to satisfy thecourt that the exercise of power by it was valid.

Sorabjee said the Section did not propose anything that was prejudicial, harsh and onerous to the accused so that it could be argued that the provision violated right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Constitution.

Counsel for Tamil Nadu government, senior advocate V R Reddy, contended that state government had created the three special courts as allocating the 46 corruption cases against Jayalalitha to the existing judges would have over burdened them resulting in a delay of trial.

He said that concurrence of High Court in setting up of the three special courts was obtained by the state government and Jayalalitha should not have any grievance if the trial was held on a day-to-day basis.