Dr. Balaji of Apollo Hospitals, Chennai deposed before the Justice (Retd.) Arumuga Swamy-led one-man Commission of Inquiry (COI) set up by the Govt. of Tamil Nadu to probe the mysterious circumstances which preceded last December’s demise of former Tamil Nadu chief-minister and AIADMK’s ‘permanent general secretary’ J. Jayalalihtaa, stating that the latter was conscious when she inked her LTI on the nomination form nominating party candidates to contest last year’s by-polls.

“I and Sasikala were with her she she affixed her LTI on the nomination forms,” said Balaji, one of the doctors who treated the former chief-minister when she spent 75 days at the hospital before she was declared ‘dead’ on 05th December last year. The case relates to the genuineness of the Left-hand Thumb Impression (LTI) which is said to have been inked by the former chief-minister whose health didn’t permit her to sign the nomination papers to nominate party candidates to contest the Thanjavur, Tiruparankundram and Aravakurichi by-polls.

Tiruparankundram’s losing DMK candidate Dr. Saravanan had contested the genuineness of the LTI by filing a case with the High Court of Madras. When the COI commenced its inquiry, Saravanan volunteered to depose before it raising doubt about the LTI and wondered whether the former chief-minister was ‘conscious’ enough to affix her LTI on the forms; if she was conscious, why she didn’t sign, he had asked.

During his 3-hour long deposition, Dr. Balaji replied to the queries posed to him by the Commission and said that Jayalalithaa was conscious when she affixed her LTI on the nomination papers. “I and Sasikala were with her in the room at that time,” he aid and added that Jayalalithaa wasn’t seen during the treatment by Govt. doctors or Ministers.

The COI now plans to compare the LTI with Jayalalithaa’s LTI in the prison records at Bangalore’s Parapappana Agrahara Prison where she spent a few days in 2015. Dr. Balaji, in the meanwhile, has been asked to appear before the COI again on 27th December for further interrogation.