Panel probing Jayalalithaa’s death gets eighth extension in three years

Though not functioning for the past 14 months due to a Supreme Court ruling, the Justice A Arumughaswamy Commission constituted to probe the “mysterious death” of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa on Thursday got its eighth extension.

The Commission’s tenure, which ended on Wednesday, has been extended by another four months, sources in the government told DH.

The eighth extension in the nearly three years existence of the one-man commission, which has around 15 staff, comes even as the panel stopped its functioning in April 2019 owing to a stay on the proceedings by the Supreme Court.

Jayalalithaa’s death on December 5, 2016, following 75 days of treatment at Apollo Hospitals in Chennai triggered a major political controversy in Tamil Nadu with her long-time political protégé O Panneerselvam raising questions about the “circumstances” that led to her death following his rebellion against V K Sasikala in February 2017.

The one-man commission was one of the key demands made by Panneerselvam to merge his faction with the one led by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami in August 2017 following which the panel was constituted.

Though the commission functioned from September 2017 to April 2019 without any gap, the proceedings came to a halt by April-end after Apollo Hospitals got a stay on its operations.

“From then, the Committee has only been waiting for the Tamil Nadu government to get the case expedited in the Supreme Court. When the hearing was to commence in March, Covid-19 struck. The committee has not been functioning for over 14 months,” a senior government official said.

Though a total of 147 persons appeared before the Commission, Panneerselvam did not depose before it even once despite several notices.

Jayalalithaa’s long-time aides, doctors who treated on her, the then Health Secretary Dr. J Radhakrishnan, appeared before the Commission, while the former chief minister’s long-time aide Sasikala, currently serving her jail term in Parapana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru, submitted a voluminous response as she could not appear in person.

P Ramajayam, Assistant Professor, Centre for Study of Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, Bharathidasan University, Tiruchirappalli, told DH that the AIADMK government had been using the Commission as a “political tool” since its constitution in 2017.

"Jayalalithaa's death has been politicized by constituting a commission to investigate. And the way extensions are given to the Commission only reinforces the fact that it is a tool in the hands of the government. The government is expected to grant an extension for the remainder of its term to the commission as it would serve their purpose of keeping the issue of Jayalalithaa's death alive though it is irrelevant now,” Ramajayam told DH.