Chennai, May 30: The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption has written to the collectors of six Tamil Nadu districts to take physical possession of 68 properties that were attached in the disproportionate assets case against former chief minister Jayalalithaa and three others.

Official sources said the confiscation of the properties - worth about Rs 53 crore - was in compliance with the Bangalore trial court's order that the Supreme Court had upheld in February this year.

Jayalalithaa was the accused No. 1 in the case. Her confidante of more than 30 years, V.K. Sasikala, Sasikala's sister-in-law J. Elavarasi and Sasikala's nephew V.N. Sudhakaran (Jayalalithaa's disowned foster son) were the other accused.

As Jayalalithaa died on December 5 last year, the charges against her had abated. The others have been convicted and jailed for four years.

The three are now serving their prison terms at Parappana Agraharam jail near Bangalore.

As instructed by the Tamil Nadu government, the DVAC, the prosecuting agency in the case, has asked the collectors of Chennai, Kancheepuram, Tiruvallur, Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli and Thiruvarur to take possession of the 68 properties registered in the names of six firms that Jayalalithaa and Sasikala owned.

The state vigilance commissioner, too, has been informed about the confiscation of the properties, which include 1,177 acres of land in Thoothukudi, 183 acres in Kancheepuram and 29 acres in Thiruvarur.

The plots, bought between July 1991 and April 1996, were worth several hundred crores of rupees, DVAC sources said, adding the purchase price, equivalent to the guideline value prevailing almost 20 years ago, was far less compared with current market prices.

The sources also said that though 128 properties were attached in the case, the trial court had ordered the confiscation of only 68.

The Tamil Nadu government will become the owner of these properties, which can either be used for official purposes or sold at public auctions.

According to the prosecution, Jayalalithaa and Sasikala together had resources to the extent of Rs 2.01 crore, as on July 1, 1991. But after that, there was a sudden spurt in the acquisition of assets and during the check period - July 1, 1991 to April 30, 1996 - when Jayalalithaa was chief minister.

The prosecution had submitted that Jayalalithaa, a public servant, and her associates amassed assets to the tune of Rs 66.65 crore, which was grossly disproportionate to their known sources of income.

John Michael D'Cunha, the trial court judge, had held the value of the disproportionate assets to be Rs 53.60 crore, sentenced all the accused to four-year jail terms and imposed a fine of Rs 100 crore on Jayalalithaa and Rs 10 crore each on Sasikala, Sudhakaran and Elavarasi.

The trial court had taken note of the properties acquired in the name of Jaya Publications, Sasi Enterprises and Namadhu MGR, which Jayalalithaa and Sasikala had floated as partners. A number of other firms were also floated by the four accused.

There were, however, no business activities at all at many of the firms. In the others, the activities were more in the nature of acquiring assets like land, machinery or buildings. No income-tax returns were filed by these firms, nor was any assessment done for commercial tax.

Jayalalithaa, too, did not file her income-tax returns for the assessment years 1987-88 to 1992-93 till November 1992, when the issue was raised in Parliament.

The trial court had noted that at the commencement of the period there were hardly 10 to 12 bank accounts in the names of Jayalalithaa and Sasikala but 50 accounts had mushroomed thereafter.

An amount of Rs 13.55 crore in all had been deposited by cash through pay-in-slips in the current accounts of Sasikala, Sudhakaran and Elavarasi and the firms, not matching with their income. Apart from being in large amounts - varying from above Rs 50,000 to Rs 33 lakh - the deposits were also made quite frequently.

The trial court noted that the absence of deposits in the account of Jayalalithaa proved that the wealth in circulation had its origin in her coffers.

The joint residence of all the accused was another factor that contributed to the charge of conspiracy and abetment.