The Madras High Court has been told that 86-year-old N.J. Vasudevan, who had filed a case in 2023 seeking 50% share in the properties left behind by former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa by claiming to be her half-brother, died in Mysuru, Karnataka on June 2, 2026.

Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices Abdul Quddhose and R. Rajesh Vivekananthan, advocate S.L. Sudharsanam, representing Jayalalithaa’s niece J. Deepa and nephew J. Deepak, said, the applicant was no more and produced a news report regarding the death.

The judges directed the High Court Registry to verify the correctness of the statement made by the counsel and send a notice to the applicant’s address in Mysuru to find out if anyone else was interested in substituting themselves in his place for continuing to conduct the case.

The matter was adjourned to November 5, 2026 for further hearing. The applicant had approached the court in 2023 urging it to revoke an order passed by Justice N. Kirubakaran (since retired) and Justice Quddhose on May 27, 2020 when Ms. Deepa and Mr. Deepak were declared as the inheritors of their aunt’s properties.

Claiming to have been born to the first wife of Jayalalithaa’s father, the applicant said his mother had filed a case way back in 1950 seeking maintenance from his father. He asserted a right over 50% of the properties of Jayalalithaa and urged the court to revoke the declaration in favour of Ms. Deepa and Mr. Deepak alone.

The applicant also said he had written many letters to Ms. Deepa after the death of Jayalalithaa and contended that in all fairness, she should have made him a party to a case filed by her and her brother for inheriting the properties left behind by the former Chief Minister.

In 2020, the Bench led by Justice Kirubakaran had ruled that the siblings would be entitled to inherit all self-acquired properties of their aunt as well as the properties, which had been inherited by their aunt from her parents, in terms of Sections 15(1)d) and 15(2)(a) of the Hindu Succession Act of 1956.

Then, the Bench highlighted that Section 15(1) of the Act states that the self acquired properties left behind by a female Hindu, who dies intestate, shall devolve firstly upon her sons and daughters (including the children of any predeceased son or daughter) and the husband. Secondly, they would devolve upon heirs of the husband and thirdly upon the mother and father.

Only if none of such people were available, the properties would fourthly devolve upon the heirs of the father as per Section 15(1) (d) of the Act. Since Mr. Deepak and his sister were the children of Jayalalithaa’s brother J. Jayakumar (who predeceased her), the siblings would be entitled to inherit her self-acquired properties in terms of Section 15((1)(d), the Bench held.

Further, Section 15(2)(a) of the Act states that any property inherited by a female Hindu from her father or mother shall devolve, in the absence of any son or daughter of the deceased (including the children of any predeceased son or daughter) not upon the other heirs in the order specified in Section 15(1) but upon the heirs of the father.

Therefore, properties such as Veda Nilayam, the Poes Garden residence of Jayalalithaa in Chennai, which she had inherited by way of a Will executed by her mother Sandhya alias Vedha Jayaram in 1971, would also go to Ms. Deepa and Mr. Deepak since they were the children of Jayakumar, who was one of the legal heirs of Jayalalithaa’s father, the court had ruled.