One more petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking a court-monitored probe by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) into allegations of Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam having amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income since he became an MLA for the first time in 2001.
Arappor Iyakkam, an NGO, filed the petition, accusing the DVAC of not having acted upon a complaint lodged by it on December 12, 2017. DMK Rajya Sabha member R.S. Bharathi had, last week, filed a similar petition, seeking a direction to register a case on the basis of his March 10 complaint. When Mr. Bharathi’s petition came up for admission on July 17, Justice G. Jayachandran asked why he shouldn’t order a CBI probe into the issue. Taking a cue from it, the NGO, in its latest petition, has included the CBI also as one of the respondents to the case, though the direction to book a case has been sought only with regard to the DVAC.
Arappor Iyakkam’s petition has also been listed for admission before Mr. Justice Jayachandran on Monday. Though the judge had on July 17 adjourned Mr. Bharathi’s petition also to the same day, at the request of Additional Advocate General C. Manishankar and State Public Prosecutor (in-charge) C. Emalias, that case has not been listed for hearing on Monday.
2006 case
Filing an affidavit in support of the petition, the NGO’s managing trustee, Jayaram Venkatesan, recalled that a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 was registered against Mr. Panneerselvam and his family members during the DMK regime in 2006, and a chargesheet was filed in July 2009.
However, after the AIADMK assumed power in 2011, the prosecution withdrew the case in 2012, and a Chief Judicial Magistrate in Sivaganga permitted the withdrawal. “As ordinary citizens of this country, we were shocked by the above ruling... It is a well-known adage that justice should not only be done but also seen to be done. In the disproportionate assets case, clearly, everything was not above board, and it appears that factors apart from the law seem to have weighed on the decision to withdraw the sanction to prosecute and drop all further proceedings... I respectfully submit that the decision is more due to political factors and not on any valid legal ground,” Mr. Venkatesan said.
Alleging that the Deputy CM continued to accumulate wealth and invested crores of rupees in various businesses, the NGO said its complaint was reportedly forwarded by the DVAC to the Chief Secretary. However, the latter was refusing to disclose the follow-up action taken on the complaint.
