The Madras High Court would on Thursday deliver its verdict on two public interest litigation (PIL) petitions seeking a CBI probe into the gutkha scam.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice Abdul Quddhose would deliver the judgment on the PIL petitions filed by DMK MLA J. Anbazhagan and activist ‘Traffic’ K.R. Ramaswamy.
The judges had reserved their verdict on January 30 after hearing elaborate arguments by Advocate General Vijay Narayan, who opposed the plea for CBI probe tooth and nail, and senior counsel P. Wilson, who led the arguments on behalf of the petitioners.
The scam, relating to huge bribes paid to Ministers and some top police officers for the manufacture and sale of the banned substance in the State, was brought to light by The Hindu .
Since then, a similar plea for a CBI probe was rejected by a Division Bench of Justices K.K. Sasidharan and G.R. Swaminathan who, instead, directed the State Government to appoint an honest officer as State Vigilance Commissioner to monitor the probe by Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) sleuths.
However, in their present plea, the two PIL petitioners had insisted on CBI probe to instil confidence in the minds of the people that a free and fair inquiry would be conducted despite the involvement of big names in the scam.
The I-T department too had supported the plea for a CBI probe on the ground that documents recovered by it from a gutkha manufacturer, during a raid conducted in 2016, had revealed alleged payment of huge amount of bribe to Ministers and top police officers to desist from taking action against the sale of the banned product in the State.
Additional Solicitor General G. Rajagopalan had told the first Division Bench that a “secret letter” written by the I-T department with regard to the scam on August 11, 2016, to the then Chief Secretary and Director General of Police were recovered from rooms occupied by V.K. Sasikala at Veda Nilayam, the residence of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, recently.
He said that it would be appropriate to hand over the investigation to an independent agency since the allegations were against the State police officials who included the incumbent DGP who was accused of having been involved in the scam during his tenure as Commissioner of Police, Chennai city.
