The Madras High Court on Tuesday reserved its judgement on a suo motu criminal revision petition taken up by it against the discharge of Rural Development Minister I. Periyasamy last year from a case booked in 2012 for alleged irregular allotment of a Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) plot to the personal security officer of former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi in March 2008.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh deferred his verdict after hearing elaborate arguments advanced by Senior Counsel Ranjit Kumar and A. Ramesh for the Minister and Advocate General P.S. Raman for the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC). He also appreciated the A-G for having taken a fair stand during the hearing and placing only his legal submissions on the issue.
The judge made it clear that he had no preconceived notions and that the suo motu proceedings had been initiated only to ensure the march of law. “Ultimately, nobody is against anybody here. We are all concerned about the system. At the end of the day, people must get the confidence that the system is functioning and that it will function even against the highest person in power,” he said.
He pointed out that the special court for MP/MLA cases in Chennai had discharged the Minister on March 17, 2023 solely on a technical ground that the DVAC must have obtained the sanction for prosecution from the Governor and not the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. If the DVAC had accepted the reasoning, should it not have approached the Governor for sanction by now, he asked.
“Why is the DVAC expecting me to say that? Why allow me to write an order? You yourself can proceed further and do this,” the judge said and stated that the DVAC might have probably understood the discharge order perfectly and approached the Governor for sanction if the Minister had been in the opposition benches and not in the treasury benches when the order was passed last year.
“The DVAC should not come to a conclusion that this man has been given a clean chit. No. He has been discharged only on a technical plea. If you agree with the order passed by the special court, then you must have approached the competent authority for sanction, framed charges, conducted the trial and taken the case to its logical conclusion of acquittal or conviction,” the judge said.
“One thing must be understood that I sit in this chair with no preconceived notions. I am not sitting here to change the society. All that, a court can never do. I go only on a case to case basis and decide the issues in those cases. That’s all. When such things are done, the systemic problem is sought to be addressed here which means that there must be cooperation from all sides.” he told the counsel.
He went on to state: “It is not a judge driven thing. It is not Anand Venkatesh driven thing. It is a judiciary driven thing to ensure that the system is put in place. When a judge finds that there is a systemic problem that has crept in, he/she has to take the effort to correct it.”
He concluded saying: “At least in future, somebody must not get an impression that they can bend the system and go scot free. They must always think that some person is going to question them from the system. Fortunately, this time it is me. I am sure it is going to be some other person in the future.”
