The Madras High Court on Tuesday directed the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption to submit by March 28 a status report on preliminary investigation being conducted into allegations of Municipal Administration Minister S.P. Velumani having abused his official position to obtain government civil contracts for his benami companies.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and P. Rajamanickam issued the direction on a public interest litigation petition filed by Arappor Iyakkam, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) represented by its managing trustee Jayaram Venkatesan, seeking constitution of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the allegations levelled against the Minister.
Advocate-General Vijay Narayan informed the court that Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam organising secretary R.S. Bharathi too had filed a similar case last year before a single judge of the court, on the criminal side, seeking a direction to the DVAC to register a case against the minister.
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Since Section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 requires prior sanction from a competent authority even before conducting a preliminary inquiry against a public servant, the State government had accorded such sanction on January 8 and the DVAC too had commenced the preliminary inquiry on January 21, the A-G said.
Since Arappor Iyakkam’s complaint was identical, it too could be clubbed with Mr. Bharathi’s complaint and inquired into, he added. However, advocate V. Suresh, representing the NGO, questioned the appropriateness of the State having granted the sanction, under Section 17A of PCA, to inquire the allegations against the minister.
He contended that such sanction ought to have been granted by the Governor. The counsel also doubted whether the DVAC would conduct a free and fair probe. The CBI could also be ordered to investigate the complaints, he said.
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‘Too early to presume’
However, stating that it was too early to presume that the DVAC might not conduct a fair probe, the judges said a decision on that could be taken only after perusing the status report. They, however, took exception to a private notice sent to Mr. Velumani through registered post having been returned with the endorsement that he was not available at his official residence.
At this juncture, Mr. Suresh brought it to the notice of the court that his junior lawyer had attempted to serve the notice in person at the official residence of the minister but the person who received it at his home refused to sign in the acknowledgement. In such a case, there may not be any other option but to issue the notice through newspaper publication, the judges said.
Additional Advocate General S.R. Rajagopal assured the court that he would ensure that the Minister makes an appearance through his counsel during the next hearing of the case and therefore no steps be taken to issue newspaper publication.