Murder Over a Legacy

MGR had adopted several children, many related to his wife Janaki Ramachandran, and bequeathed his property to them. So now, Janaki Ramachandran’s brother’s daughters, Geetha, Sudha and Janaki; adopted son Appu Ravindran and his wife Nirmala, and Radha—five families—have been occupying portions of Ramavaram Garden, MGR’s bungalow worth several crores.

Though MGR’s will had clearly stated that the five could not sell their share of the property, the absolute rights were given to their children. Meanwhile, Rajendran (the accused in the murder case), husband of another niece Latha (the eldest of Janaki’s nieces), was made the executioner of the will, though the couple were not given any share of the riches. Though Janaki Ramachandran held the families together till her death in 1996, they soon started squabbling in public over MGR’s legacy.

Rajendran set up a centre for the speech and hearing disabled inside the Ramavaram property and managed it through the MGR Memorial Trust. Sudha and her murdered husband Vijayakumar waged a legal battle when Rajendran converted the centre into a school and sought, and received, government funding. According to Vijayakumar, MGR’s will had clearly stated that no institutes under the trust should accept government funding—he wanted the revenue generated through his commercial properties in the suburbs to fund the trust’s activities.

As the fight between the will executioner (Latha and husband Vijayakumar) and the legal beneficiaries (Latha’s sisters and two other families) grew bitter, the latter approached the Madras High Court to appoint an advocate commissioner to divide the property among themselves. However, they failed to reach a compromise and the case dragged on.

For someone who rode on carefully penned scripts by M. Karunanidhi (now chief minister), this script had gone all too wrong for MGR. He was the ‘Puratchi Thalaiver’ (revolutionary leader) of the masses, who dazzled in movies that portrayed him as the champion of the poor and a proponent of the Dravidian cause.

The poster boy of the DMK was with the Congress till 1953 and later became the most glamourous face of the Dravidian movement. After the death of his mentor, Annadurai, MGR rose in the DMK ranks. In 1967, he was shot in the neck by fellow actor and political aspirant M.R. Radha. The bullet was permanently lodged in his neck, affecting his speech. In 1972, MGR rebelled from the DMK and floated the AIADMK. Five years later, he became the first film actor in India to be chief minister.

During his long, successful years as the biggest star of Tamil filmdom, MGR amassed wealth and invested in properties. He made Ramavaram Garden, a sprawling bungalow on 6.79 acres, his official residence. According to some, the value of the Ramavaram property alone is worth at least Rs 250 crore. It was the fight over this property, besides the other prime land MGR owned in the city, that led to Vijayakumar’s murder.

Sudha has accused her sister’s husband Rajendran and his son Kumar of having plotted the murder and has met the chief minister to request his help in solving the case. Police too say the incident looked too planned to be just another case of road rage.

The city police have formed seven teams to trace the killers and are questioning several people, including Rajendran and his son. On Friday, Rajendran and his family sought anticipatory bail, claiming that they were being framed.

Though his name still carries great charisma across the state, MGR’s adopted family failed him. “There should be no dispute or litigation regarding the properties”, MGR had said in the will. The script is in tatters.