Chennai: It is a season of legal notices in Tamil Nadu. After releasing the video, DMK Files, listing the “ill-gotten” wealth and assets of the ruling DMK's first family and the party's frontline leaders, Tamil Nadu BJP president K Annamalai finds himself in a corner. He has been receiving legal notices demanding hefty amounts ranging from Rs 500 crore to Rs 100 crore and Rs 50 crore in damages. A few more are likely to come. But, he put up a brave face, maintaining neither an apology nor payment of damages.
“There is no question of rendering any apology or paying damages...if at all anyone has to pay anything, it is the DMK and its Golden President and its leaders who have to return all their ill-gotten wealth back to the people of Tamilnadu,” read his first reply to the notice from DMK organisation secretary RS Bharathi, adding, he “stands by the statements made by him and has made the statements with all responsibility in the larger public interest...after due diligence as to the correctness of the facts and figures.”
The DMK leader had sought an unconditional apology and Rs 500 cr in damages. Following Bharathi, Udhayanidhi Stalin, Minister for Youth Welfare and Sports Development, has slapped a notice seeking Rs 50 crore while party veteran and former Union Minister TR Baalu, MP, had demanded Rs 100 crore. All of them have expressed their desire to put the money into the Tamil Nadu CM's Relief Fund. Next in line is Kanimozhi, MP, who had said in Thoothukudi that she would soon initiate legal proceedings shortly.
In his counter to Bharathi earlier, Annamalai had sought Rs 500 crore plus One Rupee, which he would deposit in the PM-CARES Fund. In his detailed and exhaustive rebuttal to Bharathi, sent through his counsel, the BJP leader first takes up the case of Anna Arivalayam, the expansive DMK headquarters on the arterial Anna Salai. According to him, the Sarkaria Commission had noted that the land was illegally obtained from a zamindar family and though late Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had raised this on many occasions, the DMK had never issued a legal notice then. “Disclosure to Income Tax Department for taxing purposes will not legitimize the acquisition of the properties and it is totally a different issue as to whether the source for purchase is a legitimate source,” reads the reply.
Maintaining that the right to reputation of the DMK and its leadership cannot override the larger public interest in defeating corruption, the reply said he “stands firmly behind all the allegations made at the press conference on April 14 (after releasing the video DMK files),” adding Stalin and others are using the party and its machinery as a shield to hide behind.
On the Dubai visit of Stalin, Annamalai reiterated that “it was with an ulterior motive to make illegitimate gain...The fact that he signed a deal worth a thousand crores with a company with which his son has been associated shows prima facie that there is a quid pro quo.” Further, he said, “The company Noble Promoters Private Limited in which Thiru Udhayanidhi Stalin was director and Noble Steels have common directors... the allegation was made because of the interest Thiru Stalin and Thiru Udhayanidhi have in these transactions.”
With regard to quid pro quo in the award of Chennai Metro Rail phase I tender to Alstom, the reply questioned CMRL's claim of saving Rs 200 crore saying, “it is apparent from CMRLs clarification that the rival bidder CAF-Mitsubishi Consortium, was disqualified at the initial stage …and therefore its price bid was never considered or compared with Alstom's...The bidder was completely eliminated from the bidding process on a subsequently introduced technicality that the tax component should be shown separately.”
Finally, to paint the DMK leadership as corrupt, he referred to a purported conversation of Tamil Nadu Finance Minister PTR Palanivel Thiagarajan with a journalist, in which the latter is claimed to have said “both Udhay (Udhayanidhi Stalin) and Sabareesan (son-in-law of CM Stalin), have realised, they have made more money than their grandfather in a year...they have made Rs 30,000 crores in a year and they do not know how to handle it.” The audio clip of the conversation that Annamalai had earlier shared on Twitter had gone viral.
