Report into Jayalalithaa death probe tabled in TN Assembly: blames close aid Sasikala

On Tuesday, the Tamil Nadu government tabled in the Assembly the reports of separate Commissions of Inquiry that has probed the circumstances surrounding the death of former TN Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa. The Justice A Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry that probed the circumstances leading to death of Jayalalithaa in 2016, said in its concluding remarks that V K Sasikala, the late Chief Minister’s confidante, “have to be found fault with and investigation is to be ordered.”

Along with blaming former CM’s close aid Sasikala, the report has also named her doctor K.S. Sivakumar, IAS officer and then Health Secretary Dr. J. Radhakrishnan and former Health Minister Dr. C. Vijayabaskar ‘at fault’. The report tabled today in Tamil Nadu Assembly has recommended that further investigations must be opened in the role of the people named.

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Furthermore, though the named people had invited doctors from Mumbai, the UK and USA who had suggested angiography surgery for the former CM, her treating doctors from Apollo Hospital – Dr. Y.V.C. Reddy and Dr. Babu Abraham – “successfully threw it to the wind on the pretext of postponing it, to achieve their aim under some pressure”, as said in the report. The report also claims that “US doctor Samin Sharma had convinced the late CM to agree for an angio, and a UK-based expert Richard Beale, also said he was prepared to take her abroad for treatment, but it did not materialize”. Stating about Dr. Pratap C. Reddy, Chairman of the [Apollo] hospital, the report states “though he is the person bound and authorised to state true facts, with his full knowledge that it was not true, issued a press meet with a false statement that the late CM can be discharged at any time.”

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“Dr. Reddy issued briefings in his room often without disclosing the real fact regarding the heart ailments and the treatment to be given to the late CM,” claims the report.

After Jayalalithaa’s death on December 5, 2016, the AIADMK government had constituted the Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry to probe into the circumstances that led to death of the former Chief Minister. The Commission had submitted its report to Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin on August 27.

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