CHENNAI: With the demand for constituting a judicial commission to probe the death of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa growing into calls for a CBI inquiry, the State government on Monday evening named retired judge of the Madras High Court, justice A Arumughaswamy, to head the one-man commission.
The announcement came more than five weeks after Chief Minister ‘Edappadi’ K Palaniswami announced the probe on August 17 in the run-up to the merger with the rebels headed by his present deputy, O Panneerselvam.Sources in the State government told Express that the terms of reference of the inquiry commission and the time frame within which it should submit its report to the State government would soon be decided and announced.
Once the primary demand of the rebels before even commencing the merger talks, the inquiry commission was out on the back-burner in the recent weeks. However, after senior minister Dindigul C Sreenivaasan admitted they lied about Jaya’s health and had no access to the leader, the opposition has quickly latched on to it to raise multiple questions over Jaya’s last days.
Earlier in the day, facing questions on whether they possessed a video of Jaya at the hospital as claimed, ousted deputy general secretary TTV Dhinakaran said his aunt and Jaya’s closest aide VK Sasikala had indeed shot a video of Jaya recuperating at the hospital.
Sasikala had shot the video after Jaya was moved from the intensive care unit to an ordinary room, where she was watching television, said Dhinakaran in response to queries from the media. He claimed it was not released publicly as Jaya, who has always been particular about her public appearance, was in her hospital robe.When some party colleagues demanded that the videos be released during the RK Nagar by-election as charges against Sasikala were mounting at that time, she refused, Dhinakaran said.