india

Updated: Nov 06, 2019 00:12 IST

The Income Tax department has attached ‘benami’ assets worth Rs 1,600 crore belonging to VK Sasikala, former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s aide, officials said on Tuesday.

“Nine properties, including a mall in Chennai and a resort in Puducherry were attached by the IT under section 24(3). All these properties were purchased between November 8, 2016 and December 31, 2016 – a thin period when Jayalalithaa was undergoing treatment in Apollo Hospitals at Chennai,” IT department officials familiar with the matter said. “Jayalalithaa, who was under 75 days of medication, had died on December 5, 2016, while these transactions were performed,” the officials said.

Sasikala is lodged in a Bengaluru jail after being convicted in a disproportionate assets case.

“These nine properties were not bought and registered in the name of Sasikala. But, the incriminating documents retrieved by IT officials through the raids conducted in former CM Jaya’s room in Poes Garden Bungalow in November 2017 had witnessed that these properties were purchased in the names of several other persons,” the officials said.

The raids had also identified that these properties were purchased with demonetised notes worth Rs1500 crore out of Rs1600 crore used for this purchase.

The officials said payments for purchasing these assets were made in “cash” and “MoUs” were signed between the executing parties.

The IT department conducted searches under the name “Operation Clean Money” at more than 70 locations associated with Sasikala in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry in November 2017.

Sasikala, who took over the reins of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhgam after Jayalalithaa’s death in December 2016, was later removed from the party by the chief minister K Palaniswami-led faction.

Meanwhile, Sasikala’s lawyer N Raja Senthoor Pandian said that his client’s properties have not been attached.

“We have retrieved all the properties attached after the 2017 IT raids. Since we had submitted proper documents for the properties and retrieved. So, it inappropriate to say that Sasikala’s properties were attached,” Raja Senthoor Pandian told the media on Tuesday.

CR Saraswathi, spokesperson of the Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) floated by Sasikala’s nephew TTV Dhinakaran, refused to comment on the matter.