It turns out that the Income-Tax Department might take steps to attach/acquire properties worth a whopping Rs.4500 crores belonging to V.K. Sasikala, who is cooling her heels at Bangalore’s Parappana Agrahara Prison where she would soon be completing the first of the 4-year rigorous imprisonment awarded to her in the misappropriation of assets case.

Sasikala, believed by AIADMK cadres as the mastermind behind her former boss and former chief-minister J. Jayalalithaa’s mysterious hospitalization and demise in December 2016, may also be asked to explain the ‘indescribable surge’ in her income during the past two decades and if her explanation is found wrong at the end of interrogation, she might get a 7-year long prison term.

Two months back, IT sleuths conducted massive simultaneous raids for days together at 187 places owned by Sasikala, her relatives and close friends in Tamil Nadu and elsewhere. They also conducted raids at Sasikala’s rooms at the Poes Garden residence of the former chief-minister and at the room occupied by Jayalalithaa’s private secretary Poonkundran. They recovered a laptop and a few pen-drives.

Sasikala’s familiy’s idea of investing Rs.4500 crores in ‘fake firms’ has come to light during the raids following which the Income Tax Department issued summons to Sasikala to appear before it on 10th February to explain the same. Sasikala responded by seeking another date as she would be observing ‘silence’ till 10th February. The Department is now planning to acquire the above-said properties under the anti-benami property Act.