I-T raids, a court case & a vow — saga of Jayalalithaa’s jewellery, returning to TN after 27 yrs

Chennai: In 1997, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa had lost piles of valuable jewellery, thousands of sarees, hundreds of pairs of slippers, watches and more in raids by income tax authorities at her Poes garden residence. The raids had led the former matinee star to take a vow — that henceforth she will not wear any jewellery. After that, she was only ever seen in simple sarees, sporting just a bindi and a teeka on her forehead.

Now, 27 years after the raids, seven years after Jayalalithaa’s death and 10 years after her conviction in the disproportionate assets case, some of the jewellery that the central authorities seized will be making its way back to Tamil Nadu.

The 36th City Civil Court in Bengaluru Monday announced that the Tamil Nadu government, after receiving the jewellery, can go ahead with the process of selling Jayalalithaa’s assets. The fund mobilised will be used to pay the court-imposed fine of Rs 100 crore slapped on Jayalalithaa in the disproportionate assets case.

Of the 27 kg of gold, 20 kg will be auctioned or sold. The remaining 7 kg, which were deemed as having been inherited by Jayalalithaa, will be exempted. For the 7 kg gold set aside, an equivalent Rs 59 lakh has been handed over to Canfin Homes Ltd, where Jayalalithaa had an account.

Speaking to ThePrint on condition of anonymity, a senior AIADMK leader said that the timing of the handing over of these assets to Tamil Nadu government is a ploy to taint the image of the former CM.

“Just ahead of the election, handing the jewels over to the DMK government shows the understanding between the Congress government in Karnataka and the DMK government Tamil Nadu. The intention of the DMK is to conduct an auction and defame our leader’s image,” the senior leader added.

Also read: The ‘torn sari’ that shaped Amma — what happened to Jayalalithaa in TN assembly on 25 March, 1989

The disproportionate assets case

In 1996, former cabinet minister Dr Subramanian Swamy, then Janata Party leader, had accused Jayalalithaa of amassing properties worth Rs 66.65 crore, which was disproportionate to her known sources of income during her tenure as CM from 1991 to 1996. The same year in December, Jayalalithaa was arrested and she spent a month in prison over alleged corruption in the purchase of colour TV sets.

The I-T raids of 1997 at Jayalalithaa’s residence, ‘Veda Nilayam’, had made national headlines for the department’s seizure.

According to Supreme courts final order, it had recorded Jayalalithaa as possessing 700 kg of silver wear valued at Rs 28 lakh, 86 items of jewels valued at over Rs 17 lakh, 2,140 sarees as per the asset details provided by her in 1991.

The I-T department had also seized 91 watches, 750 pairs of slippers, wine glasses, a luxury bus with modern amenities, 146 decorative chairs, and 215 crystal-cut glasses among other items.

The same year, Jayalalithaa, her close aide V.K. Sasikala, her disowned foster son V.N. Sudhakaran, and Sasikala’s sister-in-law J Ilavarasi, were chargesheeted for offences under Section 120B (punishment for criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and section 13(2) (public servant committing criminal misconduct) read with 13(1)(e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

In February 2000, according to the then presiding judge S. Sambandham’s order, the seized jewels were brought in five suitcases to Chennai Special Court-I for inventory and to be marked as prosecution exhibits. Over the years, several prosecution witnesses were examined and by 2000, 250 witness examinations were completed.

Two years after the AIADMK came back to power in 2003, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) had submitted a petition before the Supreme Court seeking that the case be transferred to Karnataka for fair trial. The DMK alleged that with Jayalalithaa at the helm of the state a free trial in Tamil Nadu was not possible.

It was in 2011 when Jayalalithaa appeared before the Special Court. In that landmark appearance, she answered 1,339 questions. According to a Times of India report from 2011, B.V. Acharya, advocate-general appearing for the prosecution had said, “Jayalalithaa said the sarees and watches were part of the costumes of her acting years, adding that these items were kept as mementos as they were not used again after the shooting was over.

Acharya had also stated that Jayalalithaa had alleged the case against her was false and fabricated by her rival DMK and also claimed that the allegations made by Subramanian Swamy were false.

Also read: ‘Shrouded in secrecy’ — J. Jayalalithaa death probe finds ‘culpable lapses’, inquiry ordered

The 2014 conviction

On 27 September, 2014, Bengaluru Special judge John Michael D’Cunha, in a 1,136-page judgment, sentenced Jayalalithaa and three others to four years in jail. She was fined Rs 100 crore in connection with the disproportionate assets case while Sasikala, Sudhakaran and Ilavarasi were fined Rs 10 crore each. Jayalalithaa had to step down as CM and had to serve a month in Bengaluru’s Parappana Agrahara Central Prison.

Jayalalithaa filed an appeal against the special court’s judgment in the Karnataka High Court and in May 2015, she was acquitted in the case. This verdict was a boost for her, leading to her massive victory in the 2016 state assembly polls where she returned as the CM for the second time consecutively — a first in 32 years in the state’s political history.

In December of 2016, Jayalalithaa died after suffering a cardiac arrest.

Two months later, she, along with Sasikala, Ilavarasi and Sudhakaran, was convicted in the disproportionate assets case and fined Rs 130 crore and awarded a four-year jail term.

Sasikala and others were arrested in February 2017 and later released in 2021 after she had completed her full prison term.

Jewellery to be handed over to Tamil Nadu

Justice H.A. Mohan, presiding over the 36th additional city civil and sessions court, has ordered the Tamil Nadu home secretary and an inspector-general of police from the directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption (DVAC) to come “along with a photographer and videographer, and six big trunks with necessary security, for collecting the jewels from this court”.

The court has also instructed the registrar, city civil court, to make necessary security arrangements with local police for the two days the jewels are to be handed over to the Tamil Nadu officials.

After auctioning her movable assets, the court will bring her immovable assets for auction to ensure the court-imposed Rs 100 crore fine is obtained.

According to Jayalalithaa’s 2016 affidavit, filed when she contested from the R.K. Nagar constituency in Chennai, she had shown her net assets as being over Rs 113 crore with the value of her gold jewellery with the Karnataka Treasury not mentioned. In the affidavit, she had net movable assets worth over Rs 41 crore, immovable assets worth over Rs 72 crore and liabilities of over Rs 2 crore.

(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)

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