Madras high court on Friday issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu government and the Chennai Corporation after admitting the plea filed by S Amrutha, who claims to be the biological daughter of late Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa and sought permission to exhume her mother's body .
Hearing the petition on Friday, Justice S Vidyanathan also impleaded Jayalalithaa's niece Deepak and Deepa as party respondents to the petition. The judge wanted the authorities to file their replies by January 5.
The judge also asked Amrutha as to why she did not claim Sobhan Babu as her father in the petition. He also wanted to know whether Apollo Hospitals, where late Jayalalithaa was hospitalised, has kept any of her blood samples in its possession.
When Amrutha's counsel moved the high court on Thursday, Advocate General Vijay Narayan opposed her petition strongly saying that without any authority, her claim was not maintainable and was a publicity stunt.
Pointing out that several people were claiming that they were legal heirs of Jayalalithaa, the judge had said that to put a quietus to the issue, a DNA test may be ordered. If the claim comes out to be false, the petitioner has to face the consequences, the judge added.
Earlier in November, the Supreme Court had refused to hear a similar petition filed by her. In her petition, Amrutha had said that she knew Jayalalithaa as her aunt and it was only in March, three months after Jayalalithaa's demise that it was revealed to her that she was, in fact, Jayalalithaa's daughter.
