Panel probing Jayalalithaa’s death summons O Panneerselvam on December 20

Chennai: The Justice A Arumughaswamy Commission has issued summons to AIADMK coordinator and state deputy chief minister O Panneerselvam, nearly 15 months after the government set up the investigation into the circumstances around the death of AIADMK icon J Jayalalithaa.

Panneerselvam has been asked to appear on December 20, along with two police officers who were in charge of Jayalalithaa’s security around the time of her hospitalisation, said three people aware of the commission’s proceedings.

Through next week, inquiries are slated for state health minister C Vijaya Baskar and C Ponnaiyan, a long-time AIADMK leader and one of t h e cl o s e a s s o c i a t e s o f Panneerselvam. On Friday, the commission will hold examinations with s t ate health secretary J Radhakrishnan and some others who had been “servants at Poes Garden,” the residence of former chief minister Jayalalithaa.Maimoona Badha, counsellor for Apollo Hospitals, confirmed that interventional cardiologist Y Vijaychandra Reddy and cardiothoracic surgeon MR Girinath have been summoned to appear on Monday.


“We are happy that the commission has summoned Panneerselvam, Vijaya Baskar and Radhakrishnan. It has been our grievance that they were not summoned earlier,” N Raja Senthoor Pandian, counsellor for VK Sasikala, told ET.

The investigation into Jayalalithaa’s death have had three extensions so far.

People associated with the proceedings expect the final report by February next year. Panneerselvam had placed the setting up of the probe as a condition for merging his camp with that of Edappadi K Palaniswami.

The Arumughaswamy Commission has conducted inquiries with 142 people so far.

A combined AIADMK free of control from the Sasikala family was created in August 2017, jointly steered by Panneerselvam and Palaniswami.

Dhinakaran had litigated against the state assembly speaker’s decision to disqualify of 18 legislators who had joined his ranks after the creation of the combined AIADMK.

With Sasikala in jail after her conviction in the disproportionate assets case, her nephew TTV Dhinakaran, the only lawmaker in the family after his RK Nagar victory in December last year, runs a political group with an avowed aim to recapture the AIADMK.