The Madras High Court on Wednesday reversed an order passed by a Sessions Court here in 2007 discharging former Transport Minister K. Ponmudi from a government land grab case and directed him to face trial since a prima facie case had been made out against him.
Justice P. Velmurugan passed the order while allowing a revision petition preferred by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption challenging his discharge from the case booked on the charge of grabbing about 3,600 square feet of government land at Saidapet here in 1998.
The prosecution had accused him of having evicted one Kannan alias Kannappan, who was living on a corner of the land, and taken over the entire property through impersonation and creation of documents to show as if Kannan had sold the property to Ponmudi's mother-in-law P. Saraswathi.
Claiming that some of the revenue officials too had assisted the then Minister in the crime of grabbing the property by abusing his office, the DVAC had claimed that Mr. Ponmudi had also constructed a house on the land.
The alleged crime came to light during the investigation of another case booked against him for reportedly amassing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income. Hence, the DVAC decided to register a separate case of cheating and abuse of office against him and nine others.
However, the third Additional Sessions Court here discharged Mr. Ponmudi from the case on the ground that a person could not be prosecuted twice for the same offence. The Sessions Judge also pointed out that the former Minister had been already discharged from the wealth case too.
Disagreeing with the reasons given by the lower court, Mr. Justice Velmurugan said that the two cases were distinct since the one was related to amassment of wealth and the other was with respect to cheating.
Just because the property had been listed in the wealth case, it would not preclude the police from prosecuting the alleged offender on charges of having misused his office to grab a government land, he added.
