Jaya's death: Sasikala has to be found fault with, says panel

CHENNAI: The Justice Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry that probed the circumstances surrounding the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa, has “found fault with” V K Sasikala, former health minister Dr C Vijayabaskar, former health secretary J Radhakrishnan and her doctor K S Sivakumar. The commission report, which was tabled in the State Assembly on Monday, has recommended investigations against them.

Ironically, the 475-page report, which was tabled in the State Assembly on Monday, has also concluded that it has not found anything abnormal or unnatural in the conduct of the people, including Sasikala in the house in taking adequate care to shift the late chief minister to Apollo hospital promptly without delay.

The report held that Dr Samin Sharma, a cardiothoracic surgeon from the US, had convinced Jayalalithaa to undergo angio for vegetation and perforation in her heart. However, two Apollo doctors, Dr YVC Reddy and Dr Babu Abraham, who treated her all along, successfully “threw to wind the suggestion (angio) of doctors they invited” from Mumbai, the UK and US apart from Apollo hospital, “in the pretext of postponing it to achieve their aim under some pressure.”

The commission has also found criminality against former chief secretary Rama Mohana Rao in connection with his signature in 21 forms on various dates for the procedural aspects. Justice Arumughaswamy accused Apollo chairman of making false statements that the late chief minister could be discharged despite knowing that it was not true.

The report left it to the government to take a call on investigating the matter of Pratap Reddy issuing “briefings without disclosing the real facts regarding the heart ailments and treatment given to Jaya.”

The inquiry report has also documented witness accounts of a ‘diabetic’ Jayalalithaa taking sweets, cakes and ice creams while at the hospital. Recording the contradiction in the time of her death, the commission held that Apollo hospital had declared her date of death as 11.30pm on December 5, while evidence of her nephew Deepak and an echo technician at the hospital recorded it as between 3pm and 3.50pm on December 4.

One of the startling pieces of evidence in the report was the circumstances under which the thumb impression was obtained from her at the hospital by her party for three Assembly bypolls in 2016 without the permission or knowledge of the chief secretary or the chief minister’s secretaries then. The Commission constituted in 2017 shortly after her demise on December 5, 2016, has established based on various doctors evidence that Jayalalithaa was suffering from uncontrollable diabetes, fluctuating blood pressure, thyroid, obesity, irritable bowel syndrome, diarrhoea and bronchitis.