With a number of legal cases pending, Sasikala is not in the clear yet

The DA case has been reported to have delayed Sasikala's swearing in

Tamil Nadu's chief minister-in-waiting Sasikala Natarajan is facing a number of cases which could impact her political future.

The two-decade-old disproportionate assets case is a prominent one, which has even been reported to have delayed Sasikala's swearing in. The case, which surfaced in 1996, also mentions some of the companies in which Sasikala had a partnership with Jayalalithaa. Also, investigating agencies reportedly confiscated various valuable assets during the course of their investigation in the case.

The proceedings of the case were prolonged for almost 18 years and, in September 2014, a special court set up in Bengaluru to hear the case had issued its verdict sentencing J Jayalalithaa, the then chief minister and her close aides Sasikala, Ilavarasi and Sudhakaran, relatives of Sasikala, to four years of imprisonment and a fine of Rs 100 crore. Jayalalithaa lost her Assembly membership and the seat of the chief minister, and was also sent to prison, where she and the others convicted spent almost three weeks before getting bail.

In 2015, the Karnataka High Court acquitted them. The court calculated that the assessment of disproportionate assets involved in the case was much lower at Rs 2.82 crore, instead of the previous assessment of around Rs 66 crore, and was within permissible limits. An appeal against the acquittal is pending with the Supreme Court and the judgement is expected to come in a week or two.

There are three other cases, which were filed by the Enforcement Directorate in 1995 and 1996, over alleged violation of Foreign Exchange Regulation Act of 1973, related to payments made in US and Singapore dollars to foreign firms to hire equipment for a television company, J Jaya TV. The Madras High Court this month refused to discharge Sasikala from these cases.