New Delhi: The Justice Arumughaswamy Commission of Inquiry, constituted to probe into circumstances leading to the death of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa, has found her aide V.K. Sasikala, her doctor K.S. Sivakumar, then health secretary Dr. J. Radhakrishnan and former health minister Dr. C. Vijayabaskar “at fault”, The Hindu reported.The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday, October 18, tabled the inquiry report in the state assembly. The previous All India Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government constituted the probe committee in the aftermath of the late chief minister’s death on December 5, 2016 after her long period of hospitalisation.The probe panel recommended to the state government to carry out a further investigation into the “role” of the abovementioned people.It also reportedly found “criminality” on the part of the then chief secretary Rama Mohana Rao based on his signature on 21 forms pertaining to various procedural aspects of treatment given to the former chief minister. “Of course, it is a man-made lapse and he would reap the consequences, especially because the life of late CM was involved. Hence, investigation is to be ordered,” the panel said in its report.The probe panel charged that though they had invited doctors from Mumbai, the UK and the USA, who suggested angio/surgery, Apollo Hospital doctors Dr. Y.V.C. Reddy and Dr. Babu Abraham, who treated the former chief minister throughout, “successfully threw it to the wind on the pretext of postponing it, to achieve their aim under some pressure”.The probe committee also claimed that although US doctor Samin Sharma had convinced the former chief minister to agree to an angio and UK-based expert Richard Beale made all preparations towards that effect, the plan did not materialise.On Apollo Hospitals, where Jayalalithaa was treated, and its chairman Dr. Pratap C. Reddy, the report said, “Though he is the person bound and authorised to state true facts, with his full knowledge that it was not true, issued a press meet with a false statement that the late CM can be discharged at any time.”The report further went on to charge Dr. Reddy of issuing briefings in his room “often without disclosing the real fact” concerning heart ailments and the treatment to be given to the former chief minister.The inquiry commission also alleged that no “contra evidence or documents were put forth before the commission other than stating that the hospital gave the best treatment”.After the DMK took the reins of the government in 2021 from the AIADMK, the Stalin-led government carried on with the investigation. In the run-up to the Assembly elections, the DMK had promised to carry on the investigation into the circumstances leading to the former chief minister’s death and also into various conspiracy theories and conflicting accounts regarding the treatment given to her.The panel submitted its report to chief minister M.K. Stalin on August 27.
