Apollo Hospitals has informed the Justice A Arumughaswamy Commission its inability to submit the CCTV footage recorded during the hospitalisation period of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa at its Chennai premises as the footage in the hospital’s server is programmed to be replaced after 30 days to accommodate new files.
The inquiry commission was set up in September 2017 to probe the circumstances that led to the death of former chief minister J Jayalalithaa.
The commission had written to Apollo Hospitals’ chairman Prathap C Reddy and their legal department on September 6, seeking the submission of the CCTV footage relevant to Jayalalithaa’s hospitalisation within a week.
In a response to the probe panel’s letter, the hospital submitted a written communiqué on September 11 that the footage was unavailable as the recordings are stored only for a month after which the new data replaces the existing one.
Maimoona Badsha, legal counsel for Apollo Hospitals said “We have submitted a written response to the commission. We stated that we are unable to produce the footage asked for because it is stored in a server and it is overwritten every 30 days. This is a policy that is followed across Apollo Hospitals”.
Whereas On September 7 when the chief operating officer of the group Subbiah Viswanathan appeared before the commission, he stated that all CCTV cameras were working and were switched off on the request of a government official.
The commission has summoned Subbiah to appear before it on September 25 for further examination and cross-questioning by VK Sasikala’s counsel.
In a separate development, Justice Arumughaswamy on Monday wrote to the Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary and the Governor’s office seeking clarification on various matters surrounding Jayalalithaa’s hospitalisation.
Sources privy to the developments say the commission sought a response on the following matters:
Did the then Chief Secretary P.Ram Mohan Rao submit any report on Jayalalithaa’s hospitalisation to the Governor’s office, President’s office, Tamil Nadu government and the acting chief minister?
Did the health secretary, J Radhakrishnan submit any report on Jayalalithaa’s hospitalisation to the council of ministers’ and the chief secretary?
Also the following response was sought from the governor’s office:
Did the Tamil Nadu government send medical bulletins and if yes how many were sent?
Did the then acting Governor Vidyasagar Rao who saw Jayalalithaa twice at the hospital, send any report to the President of India?
Was Vidyasagar Rao apprised about the details of Jayalalithaa’s hospitalisation?
The one-man probe commission is expected to submit its final report on October 24 when its tenure ends.
