The Madras High Court on Friday refused to quash a criminal case registered against Minister for Cooperation I. Periyasamy and M. Parvin, wife of retired Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Jaffar Sait, for alleged illegal allotment of Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) plots at Thiruvanmiyur in Chennai in 2009.
Justice M. Nirmal Kumar also dismissed petitions filed by former IAS officer K. Rajamanickam, who served as secretary to former secretary to Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, and his son R. Durgashankar to discharge them from the same case, registered in 2011 on a complaint lodged by A. Shankar, alias ‘Savukku’ Shankar.
Passing common orders on all four petitions, the judge concurred with State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah that there were enough materials against all the accused in the case and, therefore, they must face trial before the special court for legislators than approaching the High Court.
The judge pointed out that the IPS officer was heading the intelligence wing in the State between May 2007 and December 2010. Then, Mr. Periyasamy was the Housing Minister. In April 2008, he was allotted a 4,763 square feet of TNHB plot at Thiruvanmiyur in his name under the Government’s Discretionary Quota. Within a few days, he got the allotment cancelled but in May 2008, an application was submitted for allotment of the same plot to his daughter Jeniffer, then a medical college student, and the allotment was made within five days. After making full payment, she too filed an application on April 2009 for cancellation, and got it cancelled in May 2009.
On June 2, 2009, Ms. Parvin filed an application for allotment of the plot to her and it was allotted on June 5, 2009. The judge pointed out that Mr. Rajamanickam had made a positive endorsement in the application and the Minister, too, cleared the files quickly at lightning speed, which led to the allotment having been made within four days.
Similarly, one more plot had been allotted to Mr. Durgashankar by claiming that he was a social worker. “This cannot be done unless there is predetermined meeting of mind. All allotment of plots and cancellation of the same were done within the family, that too within a short period, which confirmed the violation of public duty against the interest of the State. The wilful negligence of A6 [Mr. Periyasamy] shows his criminal conspiracy with the other accused,” the judge wrote.
The present petitioners had argued that the case against them was filed after the AIADMK came to power in the State in 2011. They also said that the complainant, a former clerical staff with the Directorate of Vigilance of Anti-Corruption (DVAC), had an axe to grind against the IPS officer because the latter had taken action against him for stealing data from the DVAC’s office.
However, the judge said that those were issues to be canvassed during the course of trial. Though the IPS officer too had been listed as the first accused, the case against him got quashed in 2019 since the Centre had not granted sanction for prosecution when he was in service.
