CHENNAI: The First Bench of the Madras High Court has stayed an order of a single judge and dispensed with the personal appearance of Greater Chennai Police Commissioner S George before him on March 22 in connection with a contempt of court case.
The bench of Acting Chief Justice Huluvadi G Ramesh and Justice R M T Teekka Raman dispensed with the personal appearance of George on Wednesday and also transferred the case to itself.
Last week, Justice N Kirubakaran directed George to appear before him on March 22, for the latter’s failure to provide security to a whistleblower, as directed on December 2 last year by the court.
On Monday, a memo was filed before the first bench on behalf of George, saying that the order of Justice Kirubakaran was communicated to him and he in turn instructed the Additional Commissioner of Police to look into the matter.
Accordingly, the ACP instructed his subordinate officials to implement the order. “It is learnt that the police have been visiting the petitioner (whistleblower) six times a day and obtaining signatures from him. Hence, we do not know in what way he had violated the court orders,” the memo said.
Second, the Commissioner of Police was not at all a party to the petition before the single judge and hence contempt proceedings could not be held against him, it was argued.
The issue relates to a petition filed by Injambakkam resident Pon Thangavelu who said a local councillor, Annamalai, was abusing his position and paying a pittance as property tax. For each of his more than five bungalows, he was paying `55 to `110 as annual property tax.
The councillor was found to have declared his properties as ‘nil’ though he possessed assets worth several crores of rupees. The scope of the petition has now been expanded and all councillors holding the post in the past 10 years have to submit their asset details to court.
In view of the political nature of the proceedings, the court said the whistleblower required police security. It was in this context that the court had ordered the CoP to provide protection to Thangavelu.