A court hearing two corruption cases against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalitha will rule Thursday on her plea to club them.

Special judge A.S. Pachhapure here was to have pronounced the order Wednesday. He delayed it after Jayalalitha's counsel N. Jothi sought to be heard, in the wake of Madras High Court ruling on the issue Monday, before the order was passed.

The Madras High Court reiterated that it was for the Bangalore court to decide on clubbing the two cases. Jothi pleaded this be done since evidence in the case relating to the purchase of a hotel had been collected and investigations into the case relating to disproportionate assets had been completed.

Jothi also cited various judgements of the Supreme Court and lower courts in similar cases in support of his arguments.

The special court, set up on the direction of the apex court November 18, 2003, is trying the two cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Besides Jayalalitha, her confidante Sashikala Natarajan, her foster son V. N. Sudhakaran and her relative J. Ilavarasi have been charged in the wealth case. Jayalalitha and Rajya Sabha MP T.V. Dinakaran are charged in the hotel case.

Public prosecutor B.V. Acharya argued that the cases could not be clubbed at the pre-trial stage in view of earlier observations of the Supreme Court and Madras High Court.

"Even before the apex court transferred the cases for trial, the Madras High Court order is final and binding, as all the contentious issues raised by the defence counsel were considered before the judgement was given, wherein no relief was granted," Acharya argued.

Counsel for Dinakaran told the court he too would like to be heard by the special judge before the order was passed.

The prosecution, however, objected to this on the ground that this was yet another attempt to delay the proceedings.

The judge directed Dinakaran's counsel to make his submissions Thursday.