Director-General of Police (DGP) S.R. Jangid on Wednesday took strong exception to a series of cases filed against him by a businesswoman and wondered how the Madras High Court Registry could accept the affidavits filed by her, levelling baseless allegations against him, with the sole objective of spoiling his career prospects.
Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices C.T. Selvam and M.V. Muralidaran, senior counsel N.R. Elango, representing Mr. Jangid, said the petitioner, V. Vidya from T. Nagar, had accused the officer of having foisted false cases against her in order to safeguard a real estate broker, who had reportedly cheated her, without any basis.
Stating that the Registry should not have accepted the affidavits filed by Ms. Vidya just because she was arguing the cases on her own as a party-in-person, he asked: “I understand that the Registry need not go through the contents of each and every affidavit filed in the court, but will the Registry permit an advocate to file such affidavits?”
Further, wondering how the petitioner was able to lay her hands on several official documents which she had produced before the court to substantiate her case, Mr. Elango insisted on a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the issue. Replying to it, the petitioner claimed that all the documents were obtained through Right to Information Act, 2005.
Promotion challenged
After hearing them, the Bench directed the High Court Registry to post all the cases filed by the petitioner, along with two writ appeals preferred by Mr. Jangid, for final hearing on January 8.
In her affidavits, Ms. Vidya had claimed to have been cheated by one K.C. Bose to the tune of ₹25 lakh with respect to purchase of 125 grounds of land at Orathur in Cuddalore district. When she chose to prosecute him for the offence of cheating, Mr. Jangid foiled her efforts and made her an accused in a few criminal cases, she alleged. The businesswoman had initially filed a writ petition seeking a direction to the Centre as well as the State government to desist from considering Mr. Jangid’s name for promotion as DGP. Nevertheless, he was promoted on September 14, subject to the outcome of the writ petition, and hence, she had filed another writ petition challenging his promotion.
She had filed a few other writ petitions, of which one sought a direction to the Centre to accord sanction for prosecuting the DGP and another urged the court to issue a writ of quo warranto questioning the authority under which Mr. Jangid was holding the post.
The Home Secretary had, nevertheless, backed Mr. Jangid by filing a counter-affidavit which read: “The writ petitioner herein is a fraudster facing three criminal cases. Hence, she has no locus standi to seek a direction to stop transfer and promotion of the third respondent [Mr. Jangid].”
