Divested of lands by Karunanidhi's grandson, alleges woman; Madras HC rejects

CHENNAI: A woman who alleged that former chief minister M Karunanidhi’s grandson M K M Arivunidhi and his associates had coerced her into signing three land documents in a span of five hours in 2009, failed to earn any reprieve from the Madras high court which dismissed her plea as an attempt to get ‘political mileage’. Arivunidhi is son of Karunanidhi’s eldest son M K Muthu. In her complaint, V Bharathi of Triplicane said she had owned five properties in and around Chennai, and that on December 21, 2009 Arivunidhi’s driver Ramesh took her to the former’s Gopalapuram residence by force in his car. According to her, at 8.30am that day, the Velachery sub-registrar came to the house and obtained her signature on some power of attorney papers in favour of Arivunidhi’s uncle J Sundaramoorthy. Arvunidhi and driver Ramesh signed as witnesses, she said. At about 9am that day, she was taken to Mylapore registrar office along with Arivunidhi, Sundaramoorthy and Ramesh. There she was forced to sign some more power of attorney papers in favour of Sundaramoorthy. At about 10.30am, they took her to Guduvanchery sub registrar office and obtained signatures in similar power of attorney papers.Thus, within a span of five hours on December 21, 2009, Arivunidhi and his henchmen forcibly obtained signatures three power of attorney papers in favour of Sundaramoorthy, who is Arivunidhi's uncle, she said.Interestingly, three days later, on December 24, 2009, Sundaramoorthy executed three sale deeds in favour of Poongodi, wife of Arivunidhi, thereby transferring ownership of the properties to Arivunidhi’s wife.According to Bharathi, the Mylapore property was transferred back to her by Pooongodi after she threatened that she would lodge a police complaint against them. Though she lodged a complaint to the city police commissioner in June 2013 and the matter was asked to be probed, in January this year, it was closed as “transactions are civil in nature”. However, Justice C T Selvam, before whom the matter came up for hearing, dismissed the matter saying it was nothing but an attempt for political mileage. Refusing to direct police to register FIR, the judge said inquiry revealed that the matter was of civil nature and that though basis for entire allegations were records maintained by registration department officials, the present petition to register FIR was filed only earlier this month.