Expelled AIADMK Rajya Sabha member Sasikala Pushpa (41), her mother R. Gowri (62) and husband T. Lingeswara Thilagam (54) have filed individual anticipatory bail applications in the Madras High Court Bench here in connection with a case registered against them by Thisayanvilai police in Tirunelveli district on Sunday on a charge of coercing their former domestic help to withdraw a sexual abuse complaint lodged by her last year.
In their identical petitions, they claimed that their former domestic help had agreed to withdraw the complaint voluntarily without any kind of coercion. However, she made a volte-face and accused them of forcing her to withdraw the case only at the instance of Ms. Pushpa’s political rival Anandaraj, former Sathankulam panchayat union chairman, they said.
They urged the court to order their release in the event of being arrested in the latest case. The complainant had claimed to have been kept in illegal confinement in Madurai and Tirunelveli last month.
All the applications have been listed before Justice J. Nisha Banu on Friday.
