A committee set up under retired Judge Sampath found out that the heavy casualties were due to the management's tactics to admit extra students to a primary school in order to mislead the authorities about the student-teacher ratio.

The district administration arranged another primary school in Natham village and accommodated 46 students under the government's Educational Guarantee Scheme.

The headmaster Prabharan and three others were charged in the case, along with Pulavar Palanichamy, his wife and correspondent of the school Saraswati, three teachers, six officers of the Elementary Education Department, the Kumbakonam Municipal Commissioner, the town planning officer, and four assistants of the education department.

On 30 July 2014, the court sentenced the school founder Pulavar Palanichamy to life imprisonment and fined him ₹5,165,700.

[5] The northern wing in the ground floor accommodated the Saraswathy Nursery and Primary School, which had six classes, one each for LKG (Lower Kinter Garden), UKG (Upper Kinter Garden), I, II, IV, and V. There was another entrance to the school on the eastern side.

The school started at 9:15 a.m., and during one of the breaks at 10:30 a.m., one of the girl students noticed the fire and alerted the teacher, and the news spread to other classes.

By the end of the day of the accident, 76 children were reported killed, and their bodies had been handed over to their families by the district administration.

The Collector of the district administration arranged for temporary wards in the Government hospital for the parents to identify their children.

bless those parents wailing in grief To have the strength to bear this great loss May Thy compassion and grace pervade all souls And bring down the pain and wipe away the tears Oh Almighty!

The district administration arranged a primary school in Natham village and accommodated 46 students under the Educational Guarantee Scheme of the government.

The park was constructed at a cost of ₹ 19 lakh, housing children's amusement equipment in an area of 7,300 sq ft (680 m2).

The Tamil Nadu state government deputed a committee under Justice K. Sampath on 20 July 2004 to inquire into the circumstances and causes of the fire accident.

The committee assumed office on 1 August 2004 and was constituted with expert members Dr. Rani Kandhaswami (Former Principal, Lady Willington Institute of Advanced Studies in Education, Chennai), S.K.

Saxena (Fire Officer, Madras Atomic Power Station, Kalpakkam), K. Vijayan (Clinical Psychologist, Institute of Mental Health, Chennai) and P.A.

The fire officials reported that the building laws were not followed as the school had a thatched kitchen and classroom, had no emergency exits and was a "death trap".

The report pointed out that the teachers were not trained in disaster management and the prohibited thatch structure was close to the classrooms.

Vijayalakshmi, the noon meal organizer and teacher of the English Medium School, was held accountable for not performing her duties of taking safety precautions.

The chartered engineer Jayachandran was also held dishonest of giving stability certificate to the building without visiting the school once.

Balaji, the deputy education elementary officer was accused of carelessly passing the papers signed by Madhavan.

The other officers who were earlier responsible for permitting the nursery school against the rules during 1999, namely, Shanmughavelu, Sethuramachandran, Chandrasekharan, and Dr. Palanivelu.

On 30 July 2014, Thanjavur district session court sentenced school founder Pulavar Palanichamy to life imprisonment and fined ₹5,165,700 (US$60,000).

Palanichamy's wife and school correspondent P Saraswathi, headmistress J Santhalakshmi, noon meal organizer R Vijayalakshmi, cook R Vasanthi were sentenced to five years imprisonment.

[24][25] The chartered engineer, B Jayachandran was sentenced to two years of jail time and a fine of ₹50,000 (US$580) but later the court suspended his punishment.

The court cleared charges of other eleven accused, including three teachers, six education department officials, and two municipality officers.

[24][25] The bench of Madras High Court in Madurai allowed the appeal filed by the state government against the release of 11 accused in the case on 13 September 2014.