Sasikala blames police for violating court order

Sasikala Natarajan, estranged aide and co-accused in the wealth case against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, today told the special court that the Chennai police violated a court order during the raids conducted at the latter's residence in 1996.

She was responding to a question regarding valuable watches that were seized during the raids at Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden Residence.

Police had violated the court order in taking the seized watches to the Anti-Corruption Department for valuation instead of estimating the value at Jayalalithaa's residence itself, she alleged during recording of her statement under section 313 CrPC before judge B M Mallikarjunaiah here.

Sasikala further charged the police with threatening the valuer and "making him give high value for the watches".

Reiterating a similar allegation against police with regard to footwear, she said the police had "brought in unused and new footwear to inflate the value".

Sasikala came down heavily on DMK chief M Karunanidhi charging him with "taking political mileage to ensure that valuer escalated the value of the grand and heavy sarees that were valued" at the residence.

She alleged that some other sarees were brought by police in carton boxes and "when some of these fell while removing the boxes from the vehicle, this was noticed by Jayalalithaa's servants. These sarees were then valued along with the sarees present at the residence".

The court adjourned further recording of her statement to tomorrow after she answered 86 questions taking the total number answered to 386.

The case, relating to alleged accumulation of wealth by Jayalalithaa when she was Chief Minister from 1991-95, had been transferred to Bangalore by the Supreme Court.