Durai alias Dayanithi Alagiri (26), son of Union Minister M.K. Alagiri, has filed a petition in the Madras High Court Bench here to set aside a non-bailable arrest warrant issued against him by a judicial magistrate at Melur near here on Monday in connection with the ongoing investigation into a multi-crore granite quarry scam in the district.
In the petition filed through his counsel S. Mohankumar, Mr. Dayanithi said the police had erred in obtaining the arrest warrant from a lower court when his second anticipatory bail application filed on October 6 as well as a petition to quash the First Information Report registered against him by the Keezhavalavu police near here were still pending in the High Court. Claiming that the High Court had “observed” that he need not be disturbed pending adjudication of his first bail application which was dismissed on September 25, the petitioner said the period before the dismissal of that application could not be termed as the period when he was absconding or evading arrest as he had the benefit of the “indulgence” shown by the court. He accused the police of having suppressed these facts while obtaining the arrest warrant from the judicial magistrate.
He also claimed that the magistrate had issued the warrant “mechanically” on the asking of the police officer concerned though the latter had every authority to arrest an accused in a cognisable offence even without a warrant.
