The Madras High Court on Friday, April 26, 2024, adjourned to June 7, a public interest litigation petition that had challenged an order passed by the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly Speaker on November 7, 2006 withdrawing sanction granted by his predecessor in 2005 to prosecute incumbent Chief Minister M.K. Stalin in the flyover construction scam case.
Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice J. Sathya Narayana Prasad directed the petitioner’s counsel to produce judgements, if any, on the powers of the High Court to review orders passed by the Speaker and also whether an order could be challenged after 17 years. Manickam Athappa Gounder of Coimbatore had filed the PIL petition.
The Registry had listed the case before the Bench for deciding its maintainability. During the hearing on April 5, the judges had directed the petitioner to deposit ₹1 lakh in the court to prove his bonafides. After the petitioner complied with the direction, the Bench decided to hear the matter at length, after the summer vacation for the court in May. They also directed his counsel to produce authorities on the merits of the case when the matter was listed next.
In his affidavit, the litigant had stated that the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) had registered a case against former Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, the incumbent Chief Minister and a few others on June 29, 2001.
The case was booked on the basis of a complaint lodged by then Chennai Corporation Commissioner J.C.T. Acharyalu. Touted as the flyover scam case, it was related to the alleged corruption in the construction in various flyovers in Chennai city at an outlay of ₹115.50 crore. The CB-CID completed its investigation and filed a charge-sheet in the case in 2004.
Further, on April 15, 2005, the then Speaker had also accorded sanction for prosecution. However, after the DMK returned to power in the State in 2006, the person who succeeded to the post of Legislative Assembly Speaker withdrew the sanction since the CB-CID turned a volte face and decided to close the case by terming it as ‘a mistake of fact.’
Terming this withdrawal of sanction as arbitrary, the petitioner urged the court to quash the Speaker’s 2006 order and issue a consequential direction to the competent court to prosecute Mr. Stalin and others for offences punishable under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 as well as the Indian Penal Code.
