Ex-TN minister gets 3-yr jail term in assets case; wife freed

Former Tamil Nadu Minister C Aranganayagam in an AIADMK government was today sentenced to three years in jail by a special court in a 19-year-old corruption case.
The 10th Additional Sessions Judge for Vigilance and Anti-Corruption Cases, M Gomathi Nayagam awarded imprisonment to Aranganayagam for accumulating disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 1.15 crore during 1991-96 when he was part of the then Jayalalithaa government.
The judge, however, acquitted Aranganayagam's wife and two sons of all the charges in the caswe.
The judge granted bail to Aranganayagam, presently in his 70s, on a personal bond of Rs 25,000 with two sureties of the like sum to enable him challenge his conviction and sentence in the high court.

The Directorate of Vigilance & Anti-Corruption (DVAC) had registered a case against him under the Prevention of Corruption Act in 1998. The charge-sheet was filed in 2006.
The DVAC case was that Aranganayagam as the Education Minister and later as an MLA and as a public servant, had acquired and possessed in his name and in the names of his wife and sons properties of value of Rs 1.15 crore and that the same were disproportionate to his known sources of income.