Chief Minister and DMK president M.Ok. Stalin
| Photo Credit: RAVINDRAN R
The Madras High Court on Friday, April 26, 2024, adjourned to June 7, a public interest litigation petition that had challenged an order handed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker on November 7, 2006 withdrawing sanction granted by his predecessor in 2005 to prosecute incumbent Chief Minister M.Ok. Stalin within the flyover construction scam case.
Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad directed the petitioner’s counsel to produce judgements, if any, on the powers of the High Court to evaluate orders handed by the Speaker and in addition whether or not an order could possibly be challenged after 17 years. Manickam Athappa Gounder of Coimbatore had filed the PIL petition.
The Registry had listed the case earlier than the Bench for deciding its maintainability. During the hearing on April 5, the judges had directed the petitioner to deposit ₹1 lakh within the court docket to show his bonafides. After the petitioner complied with the course, the Bench determined to hear the matter at size, after the summer time trip for the court docket in May. They additionally directed his counsel to produce authorities on the deserves of the case when the matter was listed subsequent.
In his affidavit, the litigant had acknowledged that the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) had registered a case towards former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, the incumbent Chief Minister and some others on June 29, 2001.
The case was booked on the idea of a criticism lodged by then Chennai Corporation Commissioner J.C.T. Acharyalu. Touted because the flyover scam case, it was associated to the alleged corruption within the construction in varied flyovers in Chennai metropolis at an outlay of ₹115.50 crore. The CB-CID accomplished its investigation and filed a charge-sheet within the case in 2004.
Further, on April 15, 2005, the then Speaker had additionally accorded sanction for prosecution. However, after the DMK returned to energy within the State in 2006, the one that succeeded to the put up of Legislative Assembly Speaker withdrew the sanction because the CB-CID turned a volte face and determined to shut the case by terming it as ‘a mistake of fact.’
Terming this withdrawal of sanction as arbitrary, the petitioner urged the court docket to quash the Speaker’s 2006 order and concern a consequential course to the competent court docket to prosecute Mr. Stalin and others for offences punishable underneath the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 in addition to the Indian Penal Code.