The Supreme Court on Monday declined to entertain a petition by an Amrutha, who claimed to be a biological daughter of the late J. Jayalalithaa, to exhume the AIADMK leader's body for a DNA test to establish the petitioner's parentage.
Justice Madan B Lokur and Justice Deepak Gupta, however, permitted her to move the Madras High Court with her prayer.
Amrutha said her foster parents -- the sister and brother-in-law of the late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister -- had adopted her in 1982. She claimed she was the biological daughter of Jayalalithaa and this was conveyed to her by her foster father before he died.
She urged the court to order the exhumation of the body of her "mother" so that the family could perform her funeral in a traditional manner.
In a writ petition filed before the apex court, Amrutha had sought a DNA test to establish her maternity by exhuming Jayalalithaa’s remains. She has also sought the apex court’s directions to permit Jayalalithaa’s family to cremate her body as per the rites, rituals and customs of Vaishnava Iyengars.
In her petition, Amrutha says she was brought up as the daughter of Jayalalithaa’s late sister Shylaja and that it was only after the former CM’s demise that she came to know through her aunts – LS Lalitha and Ranjani Ravindranath – that she is Jayalalithaa’s biological daughter. Lalitha and Ranjani are related to Jayalalithaa, according to Amrutha.
According to records, Jayalalithaa has only one sibling, a brother named Jayakumar. Shylaja’s claim that she was a sister had been contested by other members of the family.
“It was upon the death of Late Ms. J. Jayalalitha that Amrutha came to know through the close family relatives who are LS Lalitha and Ranjani Ravindranath that she is in fact the biological daughter of Late Ms. J. Jayalalitha and thus, to ascertain the same, the Petitioners herein are seeking the remedy under Article 32 of the Constitution of India for a declaration of the same through an identifiable method to know the maternity i.e., through deoxyribonucleic acid test (hereinafter referred to as DNA Test) which is to be undertaken by any Institute of National repute to ascertain and establish the maternity of the Petitioner No.1,” states the petition.