Karnataka ACB files chargesheet against 6 persons, including Jayalalithaa aide Sasikala

Bengaluru, Feb 3: The Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) has filed a chargesheet in a case relating to alleged irregularities and preferential treatment provided to V K Sasikala, the close aide of former Tamil Nadu chief minister late J Jayalalithaa, at the Central Prison here.

The ACB informed the Karnataka High Court that a chargesheet has been filed against six people, including two senior prison officials of Karnataka and Sasikala.

Sasikala, who was convicted in the multi-crore disproportionate assets case, had served four years imprisonment at the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison here. She was released from the jail in January 2021.

The Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Ritu Raj Awasthi and Justice Suraj Govindaraj, which was hearing a PIL filed by K S Gita, a Chennai-based social worker and educationist on Wednesday, was informed that the chargesheet was filed on January 7, 2022 after the state government accorded sanction on December 30, 2021, for prosecution of two prison officials.

The petitioner had claimed that despite a report submitted by retired IAS officer Vinay Kumar, indicating that preferential treatment was given to Sasikala inside the prison, the ACB had not completed the investigation.

The two officials who have been named as accused one and two in the chargesheet are Krishna Kumar, who was the Chief Superintendent and Anitha, the Superintendent of the Central prison at Parappana Agrahara when the illegal facilities and preferential treatment were allegedly provided to Sasikala and her sister-in-law Ilavarasi, who was also serving a sentence in the prison.

Sasikala and Ilavarasi have also been named as accused in the chargesheet. The court had earlier directed the government to take a decision on the sanction request forwarded to it by the ACB on July 15 last year.