The former owner of Kodanad Estate, Peter Craig-Jones, is looking to recover the property which he claims was forcibly wrested from him by the close-aide of former Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa.
Speaking to The Hindu over phone, Mr. Craig-Jones, said that he would try using Tamil Nadu’s anti-land grabbing laws to try and gain control of the estate once again. While acknowledging that there was a separate ongoing legal process to attach the properties, Mr. Craig-Jones said that it was never his intention to try and gain control of the estate again.
“I was approached by a publication which wanted to expose the basic overall corruption in the State of Tamil Nadu, and the aggrandizement of wealth by politicians and parties, for which I had agreed to be interviewed,” he said.
The focus on the Kodanad Estate was meant to be only a single facet of the larger picture, said Mr. Craig-Jones.
The former owner of the estate, who still lives and works in the Nilgiris, said that former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had largely stayed away while “Sasikala and her associates tried to exert various forms of pressure, for over two years, to get us to sell the property,” he said. However, Mr. Craig-Jones said that when his father, Bill had gone to Jayalalithaa's residence at Poes Garden, the former Chief Minister allegedly came in and joined Sasikala and Bill, clearly indicating that she had been kept in the loop about Sasikala’s attempts to acquire the property.
“I think that Sasikala had persuaded the Chief Minister that the property had to be acquired and had empowered herself to act towards that end.”
Mr. Craig-Jones said that after two years, his family was made to understand that industrialist NPV Ramasamy Udayar would decide how the property would be settled. Mr. Udayar allegedly bought the property on behalf of Ms. Sasikala and her associates. “There are current ministers in the state government who were also actively involved in getting us to part with the estate,” he alleged.
