The Madras High Court has dismissed a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to Union Home and Finance Ministries as well as the State government to submit status reports on the Income Tax searches conducted on the premises of Health Minister C. Vijaya Baskar in April this year as well as that of former Chief Secretary Rama Mohana Rao and the Salem Central Cooperative Bank in December last.
Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar dismissed the case filed by Makkal Kootamaipu Katchi (MKK), through its general secretary P. Sivakumar, since the petitioner’s counsel failed to appear before the court during two consequent hearings. The judges made it clear that the case was being dismissed for default and not on merits since there was no opportunity for the court to hear the petitioner’s arguments.
In its PIL petition, the political party had also sought a consequential direction to the Centre as well as the State government to submit all records related to the three I-T raids to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for conducting an “effective, impartial, time-bound and court-monitored” probe. It had included the CBI Director too as one of the respondents to the case.
According to the petitioner, Income Tax officials had stormed into the residence of Mr. Rao on December 21 and 22 when he was holding the office of Chief Secretary and had also taken the assistance of Central Reserve Police Force to provide security during the raid. In an unprecedented move, the officials searched even his office inside the Secretariat at Fort St. George here and claimed to have unearthed undisclosed income.
A few months later, another spate of I-T searches were carried out on the premises of Mr. Vijaya Baskar. Here again, the sleuths claimed to have recovered documents relating to the distribution of money to many Ministers in the Cabinet for the purpose of redistribution to the voters during the bypoll planned for the R.K. Nagar Assembly constituency represented by former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa till her death on December 5.
Stating that the result of none of the raids was made public till date and no effective action had been taken so far, the petitioner said that Mr. Rao was permitted to retire in September this year and Mr. Vijaya Baskar was continuing in the Cabinet holding the same portfolio.
