 January 5th, 1997 |
RICH
PICKINGS Poetic Justice |
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January 5th, 1997 |
RICH
PICKINGS Poetic Justice |
|
In a well-planned move, vigilance officials raid former chief minister J. Jayalalitha’s residence to unearth much wealth and a mountain of evidence.
This was one script Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi would be remembered for, perhaps even more than for his masterly screenplay for Parasakthi, the yesteryear Tamil blockbuster. Hints about the impending drama could be traced to his election manifesto which had promised to bring to book the corrupt captains of the AIAMDMK government. Initially, he went for the small fry-ministers who were small in stature but big in scams-and then moved against the cronies, Sasikala and her clan. He knew that as the investigators grilled the members of her extended family, the former chief minister would panic. Sasikala behind bars posed the biggest dilemma for Jayalalitha, who was torn between the commands of her heart and the warnings of her intellect. Yielding to her emotions, she visited Sasikala in jail but was forced to dissociate herself from her after the mountain of evidence against her conscience-keeper threatened to crush her, too, under its weight. Then came the master-stroke: her arrest in the colour TV sets scam. Clearly, the chief minister wanted his adversary out of her Poes Garden residence before the officers of the Directorate of Vigilance & Anti-Corruption (DVAC) moved in. Arrests of other leaders who could have whipped up emotions or laid a siege to the house came in quick succession. | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Yet, the denouement on December 7 proved to be more sensational than it was expected to be. Six months had passed after Jayalalitha got the electoral drubbing and it was rumoured that two trucks full of material had left from 36, Poes Garden to unknown destinations. But the 15-member vigilance treasure trove without so much as an "Open Sesame; the value of movable and immovable property in the fabulous mansion was estimated at around Rs 50 crore. |
 Silver ornaments seized from Jayalalitha's residence | ||||||||||||||||||||
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And, the investigators felt that it was only the tip of the goldberg. Their hunch was that thousands of crores might have found their way to tax havens abroad.
The raid that started at 12:30 p.m. went on for five days. The officials stayed in the house and went through everything with a fine tooth-comb. A special equipment was used to see if anything was hidden in the cavernous granite pillars. Taking no chances, they even flushed out the drains. Jewellers and textile experts were roped in to assess the cache. The vigilance team reported in its mahazar that there was 27.5 kg of gold jewellery worth at least Rs 3.5 crore. The former screen goddess had also amassed 7,901 saris, 91 wrist watches (Rs 7.61 lakh), 386 pairs of footwear, 19 cars (Rs 40 lakh). Furniture and other movable property were valued at Rs 50 lakh while the 44 air-conditioners were themselves worth a cool Rs 13 lakh. The DVAC also claimed that it seized documents relating to immovable property worth Rs 25 crore. The ‘Iron Butterfly’, who was allowed three newspapers, fumed and fretted behind the iron bars. Under her goading, her consultant and secretary, V. Bhaskaran, came out with a lengthy rejoinder on December 13, claiming that she had accounted for the jewellry in her wealth tax returns up to 1992. | |||||||||||||||||||||
Gold ornaments seized from Jayalalitha's residence
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He claimed that the seizure included the sale deeds of Jayalalitha’s property, income-tax files, pass-books, rent receipts, fixed deposit receipts, personal notes, copies of RC books, share certificates, chequebooks, Rs 1,60,514 in cash, video cassettes and a few other items. Bhaskaran contended that "not a single penny found during the search had not been accounted for in her income-tax and wealth tax returns". He also maintained that only 2,000 sovereigns of the gold seized from the houses belonged to Jayalalitha. While 625 sovereigns were Saikala’s, about, 1,000 belonged to the party. He termed the raid as an instance of ‘selective victimisation’.
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Bhaskaran apparently over-stepped Jayalitha’s brief when he let press reporters and photographers into the house to ‘verify’ his claims. He and other staff at the house apparently got a dressing down from Jayalalitha for this. The sheer opulence of Vedanilayam would convince anybody that behind Jayalalitha’s facade of sacrifice and magnanimity was an insatiable desire to make hay while the ‘rising sun’ did not shine.
Precisely why Karunanidhi distributed video cassettes and photographs of the house and the jewellery to the media, risking the displeasure of the judiciary. It was not only to convince the world about her enormous assets but also to refute Bhaskaran’s claim about the ‘exaggerated figures of the vigilance team". | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Soon, Principal Sessions Judge A. Ramamurthy ruled that all photos and cassettes should be submitted to the court and not to the TV channels. But by then Sun TV, the satellite channel owned by the chief minister’s grandson, had telecast the cassette twice. |
Jayalalitha being brought to court | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Vigilance sources pooh-poohed Bhaskaran’s contention that much of what they seized had been acquired before 1991 when Jayalalitha assumed power. They pointed out that Jayalalitha had filed the returns for the years 1987 to 1992, only in 1992. She had also filed an inventory for 20 kg of jewellery. The inventories did not match, said the vigilance officials. What was recovered seemed to conform more to the 1996 inventory, but there was an additional stock of eight kilos of the yellow metal.
The vigilance officials thought that much of what was ‘movable’ had been carted away to ‘safer destinations’. Their leads pointed to two liquor barons of Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. The investigating authorities were convinced that Jayalalitha and Sasikala were very much together in the various ventures. Some companies like Jaya Publications and Sasi Enterprises had joint registration. Much of the property registered in the names of Sasikala and her relatives gave 36, Poes Garden as the registration address. Documents found at Jayalalitha’s residence showed that Sasikala’s residence showed that Sasikala’s brother the late Dr Vinodhagan and her nephew V.N. Sudhakaran had used the Poes Garden address to obtain their gun licences. | |||||||||||||||||||||
Outside view of Vedanilayam, Jayalalitha's Poes Garden Residence
| The items unearthed from the house seemed insignificant when compared with the 121 different pieces of immovable property identified by the vigilance to have been registered in the names of Jayalitha, Sasikala and her relatives. Significantly, all these were amassed after 1991. The ‘first family’ had investments in 27 companies and accounts in several banks in Chennai. Cash remittances to the tune of Rs 11 crore were found to have been made. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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The DVAC, which arrested Jayalalitha again on December 16 for amassing wealth disproportionate to her known sources of income, was confident that she would find it hard to explain away her assets. The onus was on Jayalalitha, who was receiving only Re 1 as monthly salary, to prove that she had the means to accumulate property worth Rs 15 crore. "Income from her vineyard in Hyderabad was not great. What other source did she have?" asked a vigilance officer.
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That was a tough question to answer for a leader who stated before the 1991 elections that she had sold off all her jewels to fund her campaign. Of course, a statement made years back was no evidence but it could definitely weaken the position of the accused. Even if Jayalalitha were to argue that the jewels were gifts, she, as well as those who made the gifts, would have to produce gift-tax returns.
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The plush interiors of the living room | ||||||||||||||||||||
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In the colour TV sets case, the charge was that she held a meeting at her residence and fixed the price of a TV set at Rs 14,500, even though some of the TV companies including Videocon had quoted a smaller price. The then finance secretary, P.V. Rajaraman, had said that his protests were overruled by the chief minister. The consideration allegedly was Rs 8.53 crore and most of it was said to have been pocketed by Sasikala’s relatives.
Former assembly speaker and Jayalalitha’s counsel P.H. Pandian argued that there were precedents of lower quotations not getting accepted. "Even if they argue that Jayalalitha did not apply her mind, they will not be able to explain why she overruled her own finance secretary," said a DVAC official. The coal imports case-where the alleged discrepancy was to the tune of Rs 117 crore-seemed to be gathering momentum with the arrest of S.Kannappan, former electricity minister in Jayalalitha’s cabinet. | |||||||||||||||||||||
 Jayalalitha's house in Hyderabad | While Jayalalitha was able to get bail in the cases relating to Meena Advertisers, Pleasant Stay Hotel and colour TV sets scam, she was denied bail in the cases relating to the import of coal and amassment of wealth. In all, Jayalalitha was the main accused in seven cases including the one on $3 lakh received as donation from abroad under the immunity scheme. The strategy was clear: if she escaped in one, trap her in another. | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Karunanidhi’s formidable ally in this game plan was Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram; the enforcement and the directorate of revenue intelligence came under his ministry. Pandian termed Jayalitha’s arrested as ‘pre-trial sentencing’ and branded the DVAC a ‘propaganda wing of the state government’. "If Narasimha Rao could be granted anticipatory bail, why not Jayalalitha?" he asked. A whole lot of bureaucrats might have to pay heavily for their obedience. It was common practice for ministers to announce schemes, float tenders and allot work to selected agencies. The agencies would be either non-existent or ‘benamis’ of the ministers. The top bureaucrat of the department concerned was expected to keep his mouth shut and to take his cut. Already in the dragnet were 13 bureaucrats including former chief secretaries N. Haribhaskar and T.V. Venkataraman. Some of the 60-odd documents recovered from Jayalalitha’s Poes Garden residence were expected to throw light on the complicity of the bureaucrats in the various deals. According to a prominent IAS officer, an ‘old boys’ network was at work, trying to protect the colleagues who face hell. Minus its supreme leader, the AIADMK seemed paralysed even to react strongly against her arrest, barring the odd press conference or the isolated statement. With the help of a media blitz about the heist of public money, the Karunanidhi government seemed to have muffled whatever sympathy was generated in favor of the jailed leader. A big question mark looms over the future of Jayalalitha and her party. She had plans of starting magazines on cinema, culture and politics which had to be put on hold after her arrest. Was there anything in which the fallen ruler could take solace? Perhaps, the fleeting nature of public memory.
|Poetic Justice | Fit for a Queen | Jayalalitha's Investments | | |||||||||||||||||||||
