Sasikala applies for sentence remission and early prison release

Sasikala Natarajan an aide of former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa may be released earlier than January 27, 2021 from Prappana Agrahara prison in Bengaluru, when she complete her four year sentence in a disproportionate assets case if her application for remission is accepted, a senior prison official said Wednesday.

While in prison, Sasikala engaged herself in activities like learning Kannada and gardening, her counsel said, answering a question and confirmed the submission of a petition seeking remission. While her release is due on January 27 next year, she applied for remission so that she could walk out of the prison early, official sources told media.

The prison authorities have forwarded her application to the head of the department for consideration and a decision was yet to be taken on it, they added. Sasikala's advocate N Raja Senthoor Pandian said that on November 12, a petition was submitted to prison authorities emphasising that she has a right to seek remission and she requested that as per rules, she be granted that benefit. Also, it was stated in the plea that she is ready to remit the fine of over Rs 10 crore, he said.

After the Supreme Court restored the trial court judgment in toto against Sasikala and two of her close relatives in the disproportionate assets case, she surrendered before the court in Karnataka on February 15, 2017 and has been lodged in Parappana Agrahara Central Jail since then. Her two relatives are also undergoing four years simple imprisonment and all three of them were imposed a fine of Rs 10 crore each. With the death of Jayalalithaa in 2016, who was the first accused in the case, the appeal by Karnataka against her stood abated.