First They introduced this gala suddenly even after announcing that results will be announced on 18th. Secondly there has been some articles that sony and judges are promoting karunya too much. To offset this and probably to justify the winner, sony tried to turn things around and tried to be totally different from other galas and these are my observations
1) Karunya performing first: As per the contenstant numbering Sandeep is 01 and the order of performance was always based on the numbering.They made karunya perform first despite his bad health and knowing
that how important is to be 100% for live performance and a competetion.
2) Judge remarks on Karunya Performace: Even though they commented pretty accurately except for farah and i think they are litte harsh on him to prove that they are unbaised.
3) Sandeep's performance: I saw his performance and my personal opinion is, it was little above average but not at the level of ameys or karunya and still got good comments from judges.
4) Amman for Karunya's special, If u look at galas for last three weeks mini was the one supporting for karunya and amman for sandeep.
Looking at all these, seems like sony know the winner and they want to come out clean.