A division bench comprising Justices K T Thomas and M B Shah gave the ruling yesterday while dismissing appeals filed by the relatives of several ministers and a former Tamil Nadu speaker seeking discharge from cases against the main accused.

The bench said, "It is inconceivable that the abettor or the conspirator can be delinked from the delinquent public servant for the purpose of trial of the offence.

"If a non-public servant is also a member of the criminal conspiracy for a public servant to commit any offence under PC Act, or if such a non-public servant has abetted any of the offences which the public servant commits, such non-public servant is also liable to be tried along with the public servant," the bench added.

"Thelegislative intent is manifest that abettors of all the different offences under Section 13 (1) (E) of the PC Act should also be dealt with along with the public servant in the same trial held by the special judge," the court said.

The case pertains to some former ministers of Tamil Nadu in the Ministry headed by erstwhile Chief Minister J Jayalalitha who were being prosecuted before special courts for the offence under Section 13 (1) (E) of the Act.

The former speaker of the TN Legislative Assembly (when Jayalalitha was the CM) was also facing a similar charge. All of them were facing charges for amassing wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income.

In all such cases, some of their relatives were also being arraigned as co-accused to face the said offence read with Section 109 of the IPC for abetting the crime.

The plea of the relatives of the main accused for discharge from the case was turned down by the special courts and the High Court upheld the order of the trial court.

TheSupreme Court rejected their plea that the offence under Section 13 (1) (E) of the Act was unabettable, since the hub of the offence was the failure of the public servant to account for excess wealth.

"So a public servant cannot now escape from the tentacles of Section 13 (1) (E) of the PC Act by showing other legally forbidden sources," the court said, adding, "There is no force in the contention that the offences under Section 13 (1) (E) cannot be abetted by another person."