CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed seven advocates, who had allegedly played a fraud on the Motor Accidents Claims Tribunal by filing duplicate claims for one and same accidents, to appear before it and offer their explanation.
The advocates -- V Velu of Chennai, M Jeevanantham of Tiruchy, N Azhakiyakumaran, Ramaa Radhakrishnan and M Sivamani of Cuddalore, N Sankar of Vellore and S Natarajan of Gobichettipalayam -- should appear in person or through pleader before this court on December 13 and submit their explanation in writing by way of an affidavit to the questions concerning them, Justice P N Prakash said.
The judge was passing further interim orders on a criminal original petition from Cholamandalam Insurance company, which raked up the issue of existence of duplicate claims demanding compensation.
Bearing in mind the `disquietening features’, the judge on July 19 last had handed over investigation of the case pending before the police station attached to High Court to CB-CID and appointed Justice K Chandru, a retired judge of the High Court, to examine 353 bogus claims pending before the tribunals and suggest remedial measures.
Justice Chandru submitted two interim reports on October 4 and 25 last. On a perusal of the reports, the judge said that Justice Chandru had examined all 353 cases and received responses from 50 advocate claimants. Interestingly, after coming to know of the enquiry, about 76 claims, valued at Rs 8.90 crore, had been either withdrawn or dismissed as not pressed.
Though Justice Chandru had suggested suspension of the seven advocates from practice, Justice Prakash said he did not want to resort to such a step or to refer the matter to the Bar Council without affording them an opportunity to explain their stance. Accordingly, the judge issued the directive.
The judge was also told by advocate Vijayaraghavan Narasimhan, counsel for Cholamandalam, that four other public sector insurance companies -- United India, New India, Oriental and National Insurance Companies -- were informed about the proceedings pending before the expert body.
They were also advised to conduct enquiries qua duplicate claims pending against them and submit their response to the expert body. However, none of them approached the expert body, which is indeed strange.
“Perhaps, they too have enough skeletons in their cupboard, which, they do not want the world to know. It should be borne in mind that they are the custodians of public wealth and they cannot be permitted to sweep the dirt under the carpet and sleep as if nothing is affecting them,” Justice Prakash said and directed the Registry to forward a copy of this order to the four insurance firms for them to wake up at least now and conduct in-house enquiries to unearth duplicate claims.
“If they still stand to continue to be a Rip Van Winkle, this court may have to draw an inference that the officials of the four firms are in league with the bogus claimants and criminal action will have to be initiated against those officials also, the judge warned.