Justice N. Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court on Friday recused himself from hearing a petition filed by former Director-General of Police R. Natraj after disclosing that the petitioner was known to him personally and hence, it would not be appropriate for him to hear the plea.
The judge directed the High Court Registry to list the petition before some other judge after obtaining necessary orders from the Chief Justice. However, since Justice G. Jayachandran had already granted interim relief, Justice Venkatesh extended that relief for four more weeks.
Mr. Natraj had moved the court in December last to quash a First Information Report (FIR) registered against him by the Tiruchi city cyber crime police on the charge of having shared false messages against the ruling DMK in a WhatsApp group, titled PDP (Public, Defence and Prosecution).
When the quash petition was listed for admission on December 20, Justice Jayachandran had stayed the investigation till January 19 and granted time for the prosecution to file its counter-affidavit. The prosecution told Justice Venkatesh on Friday that it had filed an application to vacate the stay.
However, since it was represented that the vacate stay application was yet to be numbered, the judge said it would also get listed before some other judge.
