The Supreme Court on Thursday directed DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi’s wife Dayalu Ammal to give her statement in the 2G spectrum scam before a commission in Chennai after a medical board declared her medically unfit to travel to a Delhi court for recording of statement.
Although Ammal’s lawyers cited the report of the medical board comprising three doctors of AIIMS to seek an exemption from appearance, the bench of Justices GS Singhvi and KS Radhakrishnan clarified that the doctors only concluded that she was unable to travel to depose before court. “You have throughout said you are willing to be examined. We can direct you to be examined by a commission as a witness,” the bench reminded her lawyer, blunting the demand for exemption from appearing as a witness in the case.
The bench directed the Special CBI judge hearing the 2G case to constitute a commission to be sent for recording the 82-year-old Ammal’s statement in Chennai. Ammal was called by the court in connection with the alleged loan of Rs 200 crore received by Kalaignar TV channel, which the CBI alleged was bribe paid as kickback by spectrum beneficiaries during the reign of former Telecom Minister A Raja. Ammal was one of the Board of Directors along with DMK MP Kanimozhi and Sharad Kumar.
Permission for exemption from appearance was sought by Ammal’s daughter, who submitted that her mother suffered serious mental problems such as “abrasive behaviour, clumsy habit with sudden hitting or punching people, inappropriate talk and action and inability to take care of day-to-day activities.”