“The public should not be led to believe that a trial against a politician in this State is nothing but a mockery of dispensing criminal justice,” the Madras High Court observed on February 26 and set aside the discharge of Rural Development Minister I. Periyasamy from an alleged irregular government plot allotment case.
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh held the trial court’s March 17, 2023 discharge order was “completely specious and perverse,” and said: “The legitimacy of the administration of criminal justice will be eroded and the public confidence will be shaken if MLAs and Ministers, facing corruption cases, can short circuit criminal trials.”
After finding the criminal case had been transferred from a special court for MP/MLA cases to the special court for Prevention of Corruption Act cases after the discharge of the Minister last year, the judge ordered re-transfer of the case back to the special court for legislators within a month.
