CHENNAI: The background of S Amrutha and the genuineness of her claim that she is the biological daughter of former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa are being probed in Bengaluru, Advocate-General Vijay Narayan told the Madras High Court on Friday.
The A-G said this to Justice S Vaidyanathan when the writ petition from Amrutha, wife of Prakesh, L S Lalitha, daughter of Sampath Iyengar and Ranjani Ravindranath, wife of Dr K Ravindranath of Bengaluru, came up before the judge on Friday.
The petition prayed for a directive to the Greater Chennai City Police Commissioner and to the Chief Secretary to consider Amrutha’s representation dated December 9 last year to permit the family members of Jayalalithaa to cremate her body as per the rites, rituals, and customs of Vaishnava Iyengar Brahmin community to which she and her family belonged, within a time frame to be fixed by this court, with due police protection to the petitioner and her family members at the time of cremation.
When the matter came up on the earlier occasion, the judge had impleaded J Deepa Jayakumar, niece of Jayalalithaa, and her brother J Deepak Jayakumar as party respondents in the case.
Meanwhile, AIADMK functionary P A Joseph had also filed a petition to implead him in the case. When the matter came up on Friday, Amrutha’s senior counsel V Prakash strongly objected to the impleading petition filed by Joseph on the ground that he is a third party not connected to the case. He had not even served a paper on him to rebut the points raised in the said impleading petition, Prakash added.
At the request of the counsel appearing for the impleaded petitioners — Deepa and Deepak —and the Advocate-General, the judge directed the Registry to list the matter on February 3 after obtaining necessary permission from the Chief Justice.
In the meantime, parties shall exchange the pleadings to enable them to submit their respective objections. The State by the Police Commissioner and the Chief Secretary shall also file their counters on merits as well as on maintainability before January 25 and replies, if any, before February 2, the judge added.
Permission sought to hold rituals
The petition prayed for a directive to the Greater Chennai City Police Commissioner and to the Chief Secretary to consider Amrutha’s representation dated December 9 last year to permit the family members of Jayalalithaa to cremate her body as per the rites, rituals, and customs of Vaishnava Iyengar Brahmin community to which she and her family belonged, within a time frame to be fixed by this court, with due police protection to the petitioner and her family members at the time of the cremation