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STATES,
TAMIL NADU
Lodged
In A Mess
This
time Jayalalitha is charged with funding the purchase of two hotels in
England
By Arun
Ram
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Dinakaran's
(far left) rise coincided with Jayalalitha's ascent to power.
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You
would normally expect Slaley Hall to be owned by the British upper crust.
It is an imposing Edwardian structure that stands in the midst of over
1,000 acres of woods in Northumberland in the north of England and is
now a luxury hotel with 142 rooms and suites, swimming pool, spa, gymnasium
and even an 18-hole championship golf course. But if officials at Tamil
Nadu's Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) are to be believed,
Slaley Hall has an unlikely owner-T.T.V. Dinakaran, an aiadmk MP who is
better known as the nephew of Sasikala Natrajan, the controversial aide
of former state chief minister J. Jayalalitha.
Last week,
the DVAC registered a case against Jayalalitha and Dinakaran, linking
them with the purchase of Slaley Hall and another star hotel, Hopscroft
Holt, which together are said to be worth over Rs 280 crore. The DVAC
is said to have stumbled upon details of their ownership during investigations
into the overseas transactions of Dinakaran.
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LAP
OF LUXURY
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»Slaley Hall (above) is an imposin Edwardian structure
set in a 1,000-acre estate in north England.
»DVAC
alleges that Dinakaran purchased the hotel through a London-based
solicitor and claims it has details of the deal.
»But
these may not be enough to nail Jayalalitha unless her link with
Dinakaran's overseas dealings is established.
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Predictably,
Jayalalitha has refuted the charges against her and accused the DMK Government
in Tamil Nadu of political vendetta. "I have no properties abroad,"
was her curt reply to reporters' persistent queries.
But DVAC Inspector-General S. Ganapathy is optimism personified. "We
are confident of proving the charges. The Serious Fraud Office of the
Home Office in London is extremely cooperative. We are expecting more
documents from London to make the case stronger," he says. "It
has been established that Dinakaran had made the purchase through a London-based
solicitor, Nainesh Desai. We also have information about the channels
of money flow, which makes Jayalalitha's role in the deal amply clear,"
alleges another DVAC official. At the moment, the DVAC is trying to get
hold of documents that directly link Jayalalitha with Dinakaran's deals.
For, merely proving Dinakaran's acquisitions abroad and his connection
with Jayalalitha in India will not give the DVAC an airtight case. A thorough
probe into the bank dealings of Dinakaran and Jayalalitha, buttressed
by documents from London, holds the key, officials confide.
Interestingly,
Jayalalitha has also contested the legal validity of opening a fresh case
against her. "How can there be a new case when the wealth case (Rs
66.65 crore) is on under the same section in the Special Court? In the
wealth case, the prosecution filed a petition under Section 166 A of CRPC
and got a Letter Rogatory. Based on this, somebody went to London. If
they found anything, it has to be filed as an additional chargesheet to
the existing case."
Jaya
Has a Point But...There are lawyers on either side of the Special
Court cases who agree that Jayalalitha has a point, though that may not
be enough to let her off the hook completely. If the DVAC's renewed optimism
and Jayalalitha's apparent attempts to question the legalities are anything
to go by, there could only be two possibilities: a new Rs 280-crore UK
hotels case against the AIADMK chief or the existing disproportionate
wealth case assuming a monstrous proportion of Rs 346.65 crore, making
the previous figure of Rs 66.65 crore look like small change.
IT seems the investigating agency's strategy is to present a chronological
picture of Dinakaran's acquisitions abroad and link the vital points in
his ascent graph to Jayalalitha. Dinakaran had no known sources of income
when he first settled in Chennai in 1988. he is then said to have used
Sasikala's proximity with jayalalitha to get close to the filmstar-turned-politician.
Soon, he moved into Jayalalitha's Poes Garden residence and was made a
partner in Jaya Publications. Dinakaran's fortunes took off once Jayalalitha
became the chief minister in 1991.
An investigating
official said the directorate has documents to prove that Dinakaran's
investments abroad were made with money that Jayalalitha had allegedly
acquired by misusing her official position. These investments included
Adventure Holdings in Singapore, and Dipper Investments, Turnkey and Banyan
Tree in the British Virgin Islands. They constitute notable points in
the investigator's diary. According to DVAC, Dinakaran transferred Rs
42 crore from his bank accounts in Singapore and Dubai to banks in London
for investing in these companies. Another Rs 56 crore was transferred
from these accounts to solicitor N. Desai for purchasing the hotels. When
contacted by India Today, Desai refused to talk. "I really can't
comment on this," was all he would say. But "old money"
clients who are known to make a beeline for Slaley Hall on weekends would
be horrified to learn the antecedents of its new owners.
-with
Paran Balakrishnan in London
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The
Government should encash at least a part of its stake in LIC and GIC before
its too late, suggests INDIA TODAY associate Editor V. Shankar Aiyar
in 
