For failing to submit the confidential CCTV footage of late CM J Jayalalithaa during her 75 days of hospitalisation, executives of Apollo Hospitals were summoned by the one-man Arumughasamy commission. On September 7, Apollo COO Subbiah Viswanathan had been summoned for questioning by the commission, which is probing the CM's hospitalisation and subsequent death.
The commission had ordered for the CCTV footage of the former CM's 75 days of hospitalisation to be submitted by September 14. However, due to the hospital's failure in handing over the visuals, the commission has issued another summons to Apollo's authorities scheduled for the September 26.
The CCTV footage has not yet been made public, and is currently with the Apollo hospitals where the late CM had spent her last days from September 22, 2016, until December 4, 2016 — the day she passed away from a cardiac arrest.
During the earlier inquiry, Subbiah had stated that the CCTV cameras were turned off occasionally on the request of a government official. The COO told lawyers that the cameras had been switched off when Jayalalithaa was being moved from one room to another or when she was being taken for check-ups. This was contradictory to the statement given to the media by Apollo chairman Prathap Reddy that all CCTV cameras in the section where Jayalalithaa was being treated at hospitals were switched off.
The commission ordered him to furnish the official's name and the written request that was allegedly made to the hospital.
During the questioning, the COO had also said that he wasn't sure if the hospital had preserved the footage from December 2016. At the time, the Commission also noted that some of the doctors who were summoned had not appeared, and warned Apollo Hospitals of legal consequences if they failed to do so.
The only video footage of Jayalalithaa in Apollo Hospital, which was allegedly shot during this period and is available in public, is the one that an MLA from the TTV Dhinakaran camp released before the RK Nagar bye-polls in December 2017.