The Supreme Court on Monday held that the Tamil Nadu government has no right to appoint advocate Bhawani Singh as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the J Jayalalithaa disproportionate-assets case, which is being heard by the Karnataka High Court.

Though the appointment of the SPP is “bad in law”, it does not warrant fresh hearing of appeals of the convicts, including former chief minister Jayalalithaa in the HC, a three-judge bench headed by Justice Dipak Misra said.

It said that the appointment of Singh, who was made special public prosecutor by Tamil Nadu’s directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption, was only meant for the trial in the lower court and “Karnataka has the power of being the sole prosecuting agency in the case.”

While asking DMK leader K Anbazhagan and the Karnataka government to file written submissions in the high court by Tuesday, the apex court also allowed the high court to pronounce the verdict on the appeals by Jayalalithaa and others after considering their submissions.

The matter was referred to the larger bench on April 15 when justices Madan B Lokur and R Banumathi differed on the order.

While Justice Lokur had ordered a fresh hearing on the AIADMK chief’s plea against her conviction on the grounds that the proceedings conducted so far were “vitiated,” Justice Banumathi held that the SPP was duly authorised to represent the state before the Karnataka High Court.

The Special Court had last year held the 66-year-old former Chief Minister and three others guilty of corruption and sentenced to four years in prison.

The court had also slapped a fine of Rs 100 crore on the AIADMK chief and Rs 10 crore fine on each of the three other convicts – Jayalalithaa’s close aide Sasikala and her relatives V N Sudhakaran, disowned foster-son of the former Chief Minister, and Ilavarasi. However, the SC had in October stayed the sentence and later extended their bail till the disposal of appeals before the HC.

In her petitions seeking bail, Jayalalithaa had maintained that the charge of amassing wealth against her during 1991-96 when she was the chief minister for the first time was false and that she had acquired property through legal means.

She also contended that the trial court had overlooked several judgements and not considered the binding nature of various income tax orders and decisions of the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, which had accepted the income and the level of expenditure pleaded by her.

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