The Madras High Court will on Wednesday hear a public interest litigation petition challenging the constitution of a one-man Commission of Inquiry, headed by retired High Court judge A. Arumughaswamy, to conduct a probe into the “circumstances and situation leading to the hospitalisation” of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on September 22 last and the “subsequent [medical] treatment” provided till her death on December 5.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar accepted a request made by senior counsel K.M. Vijayan, representing the petitioner P.A. Joseph of Chennai, to take up the matter on Wednesday in view of the urgency involved in the issue. He contended that the commission had been constituted without a resolution to that effect having been passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly, as mandated under Section 3 of the Commission of Inquiry Act of 1952.
‘Need impartial probe’
The petitioner had already filed another case in the High Court seeking a direction to the State Government to constitute a Commission of Inquiry comprising three retired Supreme Court judges to probe Jayalalithaa’s death. Mr. Vijayan pointed out that the government had taken a stand then that all was well with the treatment provided to her and there was no necessity for an inquiry.
“Now, the same State Government has taken a completely different stand and issued two Government Orders on September 25 and 27 constituting a Commission of Inquiry and also framing the scope of the proposed inquiry. However, the Government Orders have been issued without a resolution by the Legislative Assembly,” Mr. Vijayan said.
In his affidavit, the petitioner pointed out that Section 3 of the Act states that the “government may, if it is of the opinion that it is necessary to do so, and shall, if a resolution in this behalf is passed by each House of Parliament or, as the case may be, the Legislature of the State by notification in the official gazette, appoint a Commission of Inquiry.” Interpreting the legal provision in support of his plea, he claimed that an Assembly resolution was a sine qua non.
“The present commission cannot be expected to conduct an independent inquiry for the reasons that the present inquiry is clearly an in-house inquiry and there is every possibility of bias and likelihood of tampering of records. Hence, the only solution is to appoint a commission as prayed by the petitioner in the earlier writ petition,” the affidavit read.
