Sasikala would be awarded life-term if proper probe is conducted into Jayalalithaa's death, indicates MK Stalin

Chennai: DMK working president MK Stalin on Wednesday dropped a bomb by indicating that VK Sasikala, who is serving a jail term in a disproportionate assets case, may be behind former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death.

ANI quoted Stalin as saying, “If a proper probe takes place into former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa's death, the person 'who's in jail for four years', will be awarded lifetime imprisonment.”

Stalin, who observed a day-long hunger strike to condemn "the murder of democracy" in the Assembly on February 18 when Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami won a trust vote, said the hunger protest was against the benami rule established in Tamil Nadu.

DMK chief Stalin had said on February 19 that passing of trust vote after forcible en-masse eviction of his party legislators from the Assembly was against the traditions and House rules.

He said DMK MLAs were forcibly removed by the Watch and Ward staffers. The fast is being observed to condemn the "murder of democracy."

Sasikala, 60, Elavarasi and her nephew VK Sudhakaran returned to the prison last week and surrendered to resume the four-year term they were sentenced to after being held guilty of corruption in the two-decades old illegal assets case.

The main convict -- Jayalalathaa -- passed away on December 5 after a prolonged illness in a private hospital in Chennai.

Sasikala She will be in jail for three years and about 11 months out of the four years sentence awarded by the trial court.

She had earlier spent 21 days in Parappana Agrahara jail after conviction by the trial court in September 2014.

In its 570-page judgement, the apex court had held her guilty of conspiring with late AIADMK supremo Jayalalithaa and "restored in toto" the trial court's decision in the case.

The trial court had found disproportionate assets worth Rs 53.60 crore, which Jayalalithaa and the three others could not account for. The CBI had alleged that the unaccounted wealth was in the tune of Rs 66.65 crore.

The top court had directed Sasikala and Sudhakaran, Jayalalithaa's disowned foster son, and Elavarasi, widow of Sasikala's elder brother, to "forthwith surrender" before the trial court which will "take immediate steps" to ensure that they all "serve out the remainder of sentence awarded to them and take further steps in compliance of this judgement, in accordance with law."

Sasikala, close aide of Jayalalithaa for almost three decades, had been in the jail in 1996 when the case was registered and later in 2014 after the Special trial court convicted and awarded a four-year sentence with a fine of Rs 10 crore. Jayalalithaa was then awarded four-year jail term, besides a fine of Rs 100 crore.

The proceedings against Jayalalithaa were abated as she breathed her last on December 5 last year.

Jayalalithaa was disqualified following her conviction in the case by the trial court on September 27, 2014, when Special Court Judge Michael D Cunha held her and three others guilty of corruption and awarded four years jail term.

But Justice Kumaraswamy of the Karnataka High Court had set aside the trial court's judgement and allowed the appeals by all the four convicts holding that the verdict and findings recorded by the trial court convicting her and three others suffers from infirmity and it is not sustainable in law.

The apex court verdict means Sasikala cannot hold public office or contest elections for 10 years, the period of her jail term plus six years after that.