No "secret codes" in Jaya's Swiss watches

At least one of the leads followed by the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption regarding the assets of former chief minister Jayalalitha Jayaram has come to a dead end.

The DVAC, which had seized more than a hundred watches from her Poes Garden home during a raid, had sent six of them for forensic tests, suspecting they might contain hidden secret codes of accounts in foreign banks where she has allegedly stashed away money. But the Madras-based Forensic Science Laboratory, which examined the watches using model secret code sheets provided by nationalised banks, found nothing incriminating, sources said.

DVAC officials, probing the issue of Jayalalitha’s "disproportionate assets", learnt that Swiss banks often presented watches containing account particulars as complimentary gifts to customers. They became more suspicious when Jayalalitha, while in the central jail, sought that she be allowed to select a few for day-to-day use.

The DVAC, therefore, moved the principal sessions court which had seized the watches, to get forensic tests done on the watches. It was cleared by the court, but the report submitted by the FSL clarifies there is nothing fishy about the watches. This should come as a breather for Jayalalitha, who is facing several corruption cases.