Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa died at 3:50 pm on December 4, 2016 and not on December 5 as declared by the state government and Apollo Hospitals, says the Arumughaswamy commission which probed the “mystery” behind the death of the AIADMK supremo. The probe commission's report was tabled in the state assembly on Tuesday.
The report indicts Jayalalithaa's aide Sasikala and also finds fault with Dr C. Vijayabaskar, former health minister, Dr J. Radhakrishnan, former health secretary, and Rama Mohana Rao, former chief secretary.
The commission was “constrained” to come to “no other conclusion” but to “indict” Sasikala, says the 439-page report. "The Commission concludes that K.S. Sivakumar, V.K. Sasikala, Dr. J. Radhakrishnan, and Dr. C.Vijayabaskar have to be found fault with and investigation is to be ordered”.
Raising questions on why an angioplasty was not performed on the former CM despite medical suggestions, the report recommends that Apollo Hospitals' Prathap C. Reddy also be probed. "Though he is a person bound and authorised to state true facts, with his full knowledge that it was not true, he held a press meet with false statement that the late CM can be discharged at any time. Secondly, he has issued briefings in his room often without disclosing the real fact regarding the heart ailments and the treatment to be given to the late CM. It is for the government to decide and investigate the matter."
The report also notes that Sasikala was not in "talking terms" with Jayalalithaa. It claims that J. Krishnapriya, Sasikala's niece and daughter of J. Ilavarasi, had deposed before the commission that Jayalalithaa and Sasikala were not on good terms. Krishnapriya, according to the report, had also said that Sasikala gained re-entry into Jayalalithaa's Poes Garden residence only after giving a written undertaking that she would act only as per Jayalalithaa's wish.
The commission conducted further probe on this based on news reports published in the Tehelkha in 2012 and also the statements of former Thuglak editor Cho Ramasamy. The commission report says that Jayalalithaa's personal secretary S. Poongunran had also in his deposition mentioned how Sasikala was expelled from the Poes Garden and how Jayalalithaa in her speech during the 2012 general council meeting had attacked Sasikala.
“After the 2012 patch-up, Sasikala and Jayalalithaa weren’t as amicable as before”. The commission says Jayalalithaa had suspicion on Sasikala and her relatives and it was “because of that she sent them out, including Ilavarasi, from Poes Garden.”
The commission says that Dr K.S. Shivakumar, husband of Sasikala's niece Prabha, as Jayalalithaa’s personal doctor was aware of her illness before hospitalisation. The former chief minister had complained of fever three days before getting admitted to the hospital and was given a paracetamol by Dr Shivakumar.
The report says that the treatment of Jayalalithaa was carried out only with Sasikala’s nod. “Doctors informed Sasikala about the diagnoses and Sasikala instructed them to give treatment to the late chief minister,” says the report. A total of 10 rooms were occupied by Sasikala’s relatives in the hospital, after Jayalalithaa was admitted.
The report says that it remains a mystery as to who brought Dr Samin Sharma into the doctors' team treating Jayalalithaa, even though Sasikala’s advocate told the panel that Dr Sharma was brought by her relatives.
The commission also raises questions as to why Dr Babu Abraham, despite suggestions from Dr Richard Beale and Dr Stuart Russel, decided to postpone the angioplasty.
The commission did not take into account the report submitted by the AIIMS panel of doctors who visited Jayalalithaa at the hospital and monitored the treatment, nor did it mention anything about the visit of AIIMS doctors on December 5, hours before Jayalalithaa’s death.
“The time of death of the late CM assumes significance and it has far reaching consequences,” the commission says. There is an official version of the time of death, fixing it at December 5, 2016 at 11.30 pm. But the report notes that there was gross variation with the version of the paramedical personnel who physically attended on Jayalalithaa when she was sinking in her hospital bed. It says that the “unequivocal” and “unambiguous” version of the nurses, technicians and duty doctors who were monitoring the health status of Jayalalithaa was that “she suffered a cardiac failure before 3:50 pm on December 4, 2016 and there was no electric activity in the heart, and there was no blood circulation”.
The report also mentions the version of Jayalalithaa’s nephew Deepak Jayakumar who performed her last rites. He had informed the commission that the first anniversary of her death was observed considering the time of her death as between 3:00 pm and 3:30 pm on December 4, 2016.
The report gives in detail the various circumstances that led to the hospitalisation of Jayalalithaa, the treatment given to her, the list of doctors who treated her, visit of Dr Richard Beale, diet of the former CM, contradictions between medical bulletins and treatment records, procedures like Sternotomy and ECMO performed on Jayalalithaa by the doctors and the events on December 3 and 4, the two days before her death.
A total of 151 witnesses deposed before the commission. The witnesses included doctors who treated Jayalalithaa, former chief secretary Rama Mohana Rao, former chief secretary Sheela Balakrishnan, Sasikala's relatives like J. KrishnaPriya, Dr K.S. Shivakumar, who was also Jayalalithaa's personal doctor, Jayalalithaa's personal assistant S.S. Poongunran, IPS officers J.K. Tripathy, Amaresh Pujari, Thamarai Kannan and KN Sathyamurthy among others.
Eight petitioner witnesses including Jayalalithaa's neice J. Deepa were also cross examined by the probe panel. Also, 46 exhibits like the medical reports and lab reports from Apollo, 55 commission exhibits like letters addressed to the chief secretary and details of hospital expenditure, 10 petitioner exhibits including medical bulletins issued by Apollo were also taken as evidences before the commission for enquiry.
