Jayalalithaa's legal heirs will be duly compensated: Tamil Nadu govt

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu Government on Friday announced that the legal heirs of J. Jayalalithaa will be “duly compensated” for taking over her Poes Garden bungalow, hours after the late chief minister's nephew Deepak Jayakumar asked the state administration to follow the procedures prescribed in the law.  “The Chief Minister has announced that the Poes Garden residence of late Amma will be converted into a memorial for her. We will follow the law and provide compensation to the legal heirs (Deepa Jayakumar and Deepak Jayakumar),” law minister C Ve Shanmugam told reporters on Friday morning.

Hours later, his colleague and school education minister K. A. Sengottaiyan reiterated that the government would follow the procedures laid out for taking over of a private building for a “noble cause.” “ The Chief Minister (Edappadi K. Palaniswami) will soon talk to Deepak about this (taking over of the bungalow),” Sengottaiyan said, without getting into details. Comments by Shanmugam and Sengottaiyan came hours after Deepak wrote a letter to Palaniswami welcoming the move, though his sister Deepa had opposed converting the bungalow into memorial. Deepak and Deepa are not on good terms ever since the former became close to the Sasikala family after Jayalalithaa's 
death.

“Nobody will have any second opinion or objection over the proposal. But I as legal heir to the property by a probated will of my grandma Mrs Sandhya i.e. mother of Miss. Jayalalithaa, I will only insist that the government may follow the procedures established under law before attempting to take over the private property, without the consent of the heirs/owners,” Deepak said in the letter.

By invoking the law, experts said Deepak and Deepa were hinting at compensation for acquiring the huge palatial bungalow, valued to be at Rs 90 crore. He also asked the Chief Minister not to venture into taking over the property “illegally or unlawfully” without lawful consent of the owners of the property that includes him and his sister Deepa. Though Jayalalithaa did not leave any will behind her, Poes Garden being ancestral property of the family can be claimed by Deepa and Deepak, legal experts said, adding that their claims get credence with the will left behind by Jayalalithaa's mother Sandhya.