VK Sasikala, who is in a Karnataka prison serving a four-year sentence in a disproportionate assets case, flouted the law by having more than the stipulated amount of meetings allowed. While an RTI application quoted by NDTV says the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader met 19 visitors during 14 visits within the span of 31 days, The Times of India said prison records indicated that she had met 28 people during the same period of time.

Quoting a RTI response to activist Narsimha Murthy’s query, NDTV said the visitors to Bengaluru’s Parapanna Agrahara prison were allowed to spend time with Sasikala beyond the permitted hours of 11 am to 5 pm. In his response to Murthy’s query, Director General of Prisons Satyanarayana Rao, however, said the rules related to visitors were subject to the jailor’s discretion.

Karnataka Prison Manual rules allow for one 10-minute meeting in 15 days per prisoner, the English daily. Her visitors reporteldy included her advocates, nephews Dinakaran, Vivek Jayaraman and K Karthikeyan as well as MP and Telugu Desam Party MLC Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy.

The court had rejected Sasikala’s request for a special cell on February 15. She had made the request citing health problems. The Class 1 cells that she had requested for come with a private television, home-cooked food and non-vegetarian meals twice a week.

On April 4, the Election Commission had pulled up Sasikala’s faction of the AIADMK for continuing to use the two leaves party symbol on social media, despite the monitoring body’s order against it. The EC had frozen the party symbol and issued new symbols to both faction, one led by Sasikala and the other by former Chief Minister O Panneerselvem.