HC gets 2 more petitions seeking probe into Jaya's treatment

Two petitions seeking a probe into the treatment given to former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa have been filed in the Madras High Court which today tagged them along with an earlier PIL which has sought an inquiry into the circumstances leading to her death.
When the petitions by Gnanasekharan of Nagapattinam, who said he was an active member of AIADMK, and another by social activist Traffic Ramaswamy came up before a bench comprising Chief Justice S K Kaul and Justice M Sundar, it ordered that they be tagged with the pending PIL which had been posted for January 9.

The bench initially asked senior counsel R Gandhi, who appeared for Gnanasekharan, how many petitions will be filed on the same issue.
Gnanasekharan sought a direction from the court to the Union Home Secretary to appoint a committee consisting of Medical Experts associated with the CBI to inquire into the matter and give them powers to seize records relating to the treatment administered to Jayalalithaa in the past two years.
Ramaswamy sought a Special Investigation Team (SIT) comprising CBI and IB personnel to go into the details of the treatment given to Jayalalithaa, who passed away on December 5 at the Apollo Hospitals here after a prolonged illness.

Gnanasekharan also sought a direction for submission of the records with regard to life-saving equipment used by the doctors for the past two years.

He pleaded for an interim direction to the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi and Appollo Hospitals to produce in the court in a sealed cover all the medical records regarding the treatment given to Jayalalithaa from the date of her admission on September 22 till her death.
Earlier, another AIADMK worker P A Joseph had filed a PIL seeking an inquiry commission or a fact-finding committee to probe the circumstances leading to the death of Jayalalithaa.

During the hearing of the PIL, Justice S Vaidyanathan, heading a two-judge vacation bench, had on December 29 expressed doubts over the circumstances leading to her death and indicated that he may order exhumation of the body.
The vacation bench then issued notice to the Centre, the Prime Minister's Office, the state government, Apollo Hospitals, among others, and posted the matter to January 9 for further hearing.
The petitioner had listed the sequence of events since Jayalalithaa's hospitalisation on September 22 and claimed that the "secrecy" preceding her death gave rise to "grave doubts" in the minds of the people.