High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The twelfth legislative assembly election of Tamil Nadu was held on May 10, 2001. All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (ADMK)-led front won the elections and its leader, J. Jayalalithaa was sworn in as Chief Minister, even though she could not legally run as MLA in this election. She was unanimously nominated as Chief Minister by her party and was ready to serve her second term. But due to criminal and corruption charges from her first term, on September 21, 2001, a five-judge constitutional bench of the Supreme Court of India ruled in a unanimous verdict that "a person who is convicted for a criminal offence and sentenced to imprisonment for a period of not less than two years cannot be appointed the Chief Minister of a State under Article 164 (1) read with (4) and cannot continue to function as such". Thereby, the bench decided that "in the appointment of Ms. Jayalalithaa as Chief Minister there has been a clear infringement of a...