The Madras High Court Registry on Monday wrongly listed a petition filed by actor C. Joseph Vijay before a Division Bench of Justices M.M. Sundresh and C. Saravanan, though it should have actually been listed before Justices M. Duraiswamy and R. Hemalatha, who handle the portfolio of dealing with writ appeals filed against orders passed by single judges of the court in tax cases.
Justice Sundresh told the petitioner’s counsel S. Kumaresan that the case had been listed wrongly before his Division Bench and directed the Registry to list it before the Tax Bench. When the counsel requested that the case might be ordered to be listed before the Tax Bench on Tuesday, the judge said he could not issue such a direction and that it was for the Registry to take a call.
Mr. Vijay had filed the petition to dispense with the production of a certified copy of a scathing order passed against him by Justice S.M. Subramaniam recently. The judge had dismissed his 2012 plea against demand of entry tax by the State government for his Rolls Royce Ghost car imported from England and criticised him for attempting to avoid payment of tax.
Though the actor wanted to appeal against the order, he was not in possession of a certified copy. Therefore, he had filed a petition urging the court to dispense with the production of the certified copy and instead hear his writ appeal on the basis of a web copy of the single judge’s order.