Referring to The Indian Express report, `Jaya meets new Chief Justice' (Oct 11), Jayalalitha said she was not even an MP or MLA now to warrant the charge.

She said, according to the report, ``you have stated that the move is fraught with controversy. You have also reported that Jayalalitha spent 20 minutes with the new Chief Justice and presented him with a shawl'' and that ... ``When the then prime minister H D Deve Gowda had gone to the then CJ's residence, there had been no outcry. Deve Gowda was the prime minister then, I hold no Government office at present,'' she said.

Jayalalitha clarified, it was just a courtesy call lasting for five minutes. She had presented Justice Anand with a bouquet of flowers and had congratulated him on his elevation to thepost of Chief Justice and had not presented him with a shawl as has been reported. ``Even in those five minutes, entering his house and leaving would have taken two minutes and in the remaining hardly three minutes, I am sure you will agree nothing meaningful could have been discussed.''

She said, ``Justice Anand was the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court when I was the chief minister of Tamil Nadu. We had met several times then and had a good and cordial working relationship. There is nothing wrong in congratulating and felicitating an old acquaintance on an elevation in his career, and ascribing ulterior motives to such an innocuous gesture especially by a national newspaper like yours is unthinkable''.