Can a Chief Minister pursue a case against the State, asked Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy on Tuesday, January 2, 2024, when they came across a 2014 writ petition filed by incumbent Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seeking a CBI probe into the Moulivakkam building collapse tragedy in Chennai.
When the nearly 10-year-old case was listed for hearing after a gap of six years, advocate Richard Wilson sought a week’s time to file a Vakalatnama (authorisation given by a litigant to his lawyer) in his name instead of the present counsel on record R. Neelakandan who is now an Additional Advocate General.
Wondering whether the petitioner was interested in pursuing the case despite the office he was holding now, the Chief Justice asked if such a course was permissible. Mr. Wilson replied that the case was filed a decade ago when the petitioner was in the opposition and the treasurer of the DMK
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