Chennai: AIADMK general secretary J Jayalalithaa has served legal notices to three media outlets, demanding an unconditional apology for their "malicious" reports suggesting that a huge cache of money in possession of tax evader Hasan Ali belonged to her.
The organisations are Mumbai-based daily MiD-Day, DMK backed Tamil newspaper Murasoli and news channel Kalaignar TV.
MiD-Day March 4 published a report alleging that the huge cache of money in possession of controversial businessman Hasan Ali belonged to a "woman politician who was also the chief minister of a southern state".
According to legal notice served by Jayalalithaa`s advocate P.H. Manoj Pandian to MiD-Day on Sunday and released to the media here Monday, the claim was made without any verification.
"This is mischievous, scurrilous, malicious and insinuating journalism at its very worst. In fact, it is my client who had issued statements and pressed upon to initiate action against persons who have stashed black money in foreign banks," the notice says.
Agreeing that Tamil Nadu had one more woman chief minister (the late Janaki Ramachandran, who also belonged to the AIADMK) and the MiD-Day report was silent on the name, Pandian told a news agency: "Let MiD-Day say so. However, it is that newspaper`s report which formed the basis of a report published by Murasoli and the news broadcast by Kalaignar TV."
The notice says that both Murasoli and Kalaignar TV based their March 5 stories on the MiD-Day report.
Jayalalithaa has demanded an apology in writing from the news outlets, and asked them to publish/broadcast this as well.
Murasoli is the official newspaper of the ruling DMK and Kalaignar TV is majority owned by the wife and daughter of DMK president and Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi.
To a query as to whether the AIADMK too would send a legal notice to the three news organisations, Pandian said: "I do not have that brief now."
IANS
