Senior leader of the AIADMK and former Fisheries Minister of Tamil Nadu, D Jayakumar will walk out of prison after the Madras High Court granted him conditional bail in a third case. Jayakumar, who was remanded to judicial custody in three cases, was earlier given bail in the other two other cases. However, with him getting bail in the third case as well, he will now walk out of prison on Friday, March 11.
Justice Jagadish Chandra of the Madras High Court granted him bail, stating that he should remain in Trichy for the next two weeks and report before the Cantonment police station. The court in the order said that he has to appear before the police in the case related to the assault on a DMK worker who was allegedly trying to cast a bogus vote. In a video that went viral, Jayakumar was seen parading the DMK member, who was half-naked, along a street in Chennai’s Vennarpettai.
The judge also ordered Jayakumar to appear before the Chennai Police in another case.
The former minister was arrested on February 20 in the first case of allegedly forcing a DMK worker to remove his shirt and then parading him. Later, he was also charged with disobeying a provision in Chennai City Police Act by a local court in the city. The third case was regarding a property dispute between his son-in-law and brother.
The former minister in his argument said that the property dispute between his son-in-law and brother took place in 2016 and then again in 2020. In the argument before the Madras High Court, Jayakumar’s advocate said that the police had taken action against the former minister only now and that there was no explanation for the enormous delay in registration of the FIR.
Jayakumar had moved the High Court after the Principal sessions court, Chengalpattu, had rejected his bail application. The former minister informed the court that he was a law-abiding citizen and that there was prima facie no case against him. He said that the content of the FIR was civil in nature but has been “given a criminal colour”.