HC adjourns to June 7 hearing of plea to revive ‡yover scam case
The Madras High Court on Friday adjourned to June 7 a public interest litigation petition that had challenged an order passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker on November 7, 2006, withdrawing sanction granted by his predecessor in 2005 to prosecute the incumbent Chief Minister, M.K. Stalin, in a yover construction scam case.
Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad directed counsel for the petitioner to produce judgments, if any, on the powers of the High Court to review orders passed by the Speaker, and also on whether an order could be challenged after 17 years. Manickam Athappa Gounder, of Coimbatore, had led the petition.
The Registry had listed the case before the Bench for deciding its maintainability. During the hearing on April 5, the judges had directed the petitioner to deposit ₹1 lakh in the court to prove his bona des. After the petitioner complied with the direction, the Bench decided to hear the matter at length after the summer vacation for the court in May. The judges also directed his counsel to produce citations.
In his adavit, the litigant had said that the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) had registered a case against former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, Mr. Stalin, and a few others on June 29, 2001. The case was registered on the basis of a complaint led by the then Chennai Corporation Commissioner, J.C.T. Acharyalu. Touted as the yover scam case, it was related to the alleged corruption in the construction of yovers in Chennai at a cost of ₹115.50 crore. The CB-CID completed its investigation and led a charge-sheet in 2004. On April 15, 2005, the then Speaker had also accorded sanction for prosecution. However, after the DMK returned to power in 2006, the person who became Assembly Speaker withdrew the sanction since the CB-CID made a volte face and decided to close the case by terming it “a mistake of fact”.
Terming the withdrawal of sanction arbitrary, the petitioner urged the court to quash the Speaker’s 2006 order and issue a consequential direction to the competent court to prosecute Mr. Stalin and others for oences punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, as well as the Indian Penal Code.