Permission sought to prosecute Jayalalithaa

Capping its decade-old probe into alleged gifts worth over Rs 2 crores received by former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa, the CBI has sought sanction from the state Assembly Speaker to prosecute her in the case, official sources said.

After months of bureaucratic wrangling over the issue of granting sanction to prosecute her, the CBI approached the Speaker's office to seek permission. The CBI has already been told by its legal wing that it could to go ahead with filing of a chargesheet as no sanction was required.

The Attorney General and the Union Law Ministry, however, opined that the CBI should take legal opinion from the Tamil Nadu speaker as Jayalalithaa is a member of the legislative Assembly.

The case was initially registered in 1996, under the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 on a complaint by the Director General (Investigations) of Income Tax that related to gifts allegedly received by Jayalalithaa, which she had disclosed in her income tax returns.

• Jayalalithaa's master stroke

The matter was later transferred to the CBI, which registered a case in 1996 against Jayalalithaa under Section 11 of the Prevention of Corruption Act on the request of the state government.

According to the CBI investigation, Jayalalithaa received 89 demand drafts worth Rs 2 crore drawn on various banks in Tamil Nadu and purchased in the names of 57 people, as well Rs 15 lakh in cash, the sources said. The cash and drafts were credited to her savings bank account in Canara Bank, Chennai, and these were disclosed by her in income tax returns as gifts.

The CBI sources claimed Jayalalithaa had committed an offence under Section 11 of the Prevention of Corruption Act by allegedly accepting the cash and drafts 'as consideration from persons with whom she had official transactions or had transacted or would have transacted'.

During the probe into the antecedents of the 57 people in whose name the drafts were purchased, the CBI found that 12 names were ficticious, while another dozen denied having any knowledge about the matter, they said.

The remaining 33 people, the sources claimed, had accepted that the drafts had been purchased by them. Some of them, the CBI claimed, had been absorbed in Jayalalithaa's ministry and others had been accommodated in lucrative posts in public sector undertakings and as chief executives of other companies.