Chennai, July 3: Jayalalithaa has shuffled her ministry twice within 40 days of assuming power, this time dropping the law minister and switching five others around.

AIADMK sources attribute the axing of law minister Esaki Subaya to his lack of enthusiasm in reviving two existing cases against DMK leader M.K. Alagiri and starting a third case against him.

Only on June 27, Jayalalithaa had inducted a new minister to fill the vacancy caused by the death of environment minister Mariam Pitchai in a road accident. She had also rearranged the portfolios of six ministers.

Now she has handed Subaya’s portfolio to information minister G. Senthamizhan.

“The minister (Subaya) apparently did not match our Amma’s expectations in pursuing the T. Kiruttinan murder case and the Dinakaran burning case. She had also expected some movement on the theft of Horlicks bottles from Alagiri’s constituency last year,” a party MLA said.

Former DMK minister T. Kiruttinan, a political rival of Alagiri, was murdered in May 2003. Alagiri, the son of DMK chief M. Karunanidhi, was the main accused but was acquitted by a sessions court for lack of evidence.

In the Dinakaran case, three people were burnt to death when alleged Alagiri supporters torched the daily’s office in May 2007. The CBI’s case fell through after all the witnesses turned hostile.

Now the CBI has got a high court nod to file an appeal. Jayalalithaa had apparently asked Subaya to help the CBI pursue the case to its logical end by pinning it on Alagiri.

The Horlicks case stems from a rally last year where Jayalalithaa had linked 9,000 disappeared Horlicks bottles from a Madurai godown to a health camp at which Alagiri distributed bottles of the health supplement.