Man claims to be Jayalalithaa's son, Madras HC threatens to send him to jail

Chennai, Mar 17: "I can send this man straightaway to jail. I will ask police officers to take him to jail now itself," thundered Justice R Mahadevan of the Madras high court on Friday at a man who claimed himself to be the secret son of former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalithaa who died on December 5.

The man, J Krishnamoorthy, moved the court saying he was born to Jayalalithaa and the late Telugu actor Shoban Babu. He submitted a bunch of documents, including a 'deed of adoption', and sought the court's help to declare him as her son and hence entitled to her properties, including the famous Poes Garden residence.

He also sought a direction to the director general of police to provide him security, as he feared threats from the family of Jayalalitihaa aide and AIADMK general secretary V K Sasikala.

Though the court registry had not even numbered and listed the case for about a week now, the matter came up before the judge on Friday for maintainability.

Justice Mahadevan said the document had been clearly fabricated, and said: "Even if the documents are placed before an LKG student, he will say that they are fabricated. You attached a photo available in public domain. Do you think anyone can just walk in and initiate PIL proceedings? This man has fabricated the document. Where is the original?"

The judge then said Krishnamoorthy should appear before the Chennai city commissioner of police on Saturday and hand over the original documents for verification.

"Don't play with the court," said Justice Mahadevan, before directing additional public prosecutor Emilias to ascertain the genuineness of the documents. "They should be placed before the commissioner of police. Let the commissioner verify the genuineness of the documents," the judge said.

The judge also asked social activist K R 'Traffic' Ramaswamy, who accompanied Krishnamoorthy, whether he had seen the documents. "What is your role here," he asked, adding that Ramaswamy had done some marvelous works on the PIL side.

The petitioner had claimed that he was born in 1985 and that a year later he was given in adoption to the family of Erode-based Vasanthamani, who allegedly worked in former chief minister M G Ramachandran's household in the late 1980s.

According to the petitioner, the 'adoption deed,' which had photographs and signatures of Jayalalithaa, Shoban Babu and Vasanthamani on the rear, had the signature of M G Ramachandran as 'witness' to adoption.

Referring to this, the judge the M G Ramachandran was not able to move even his hand around the time the document was allegedly prepared. "But the document shows that he has signed," he said in utter disbelief.