CHENNAI: Charging that the petitioner is ‘dancing to the tunes of others and lending his shoulders to them’, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court dismissed a PIL challenging the ‘appointment’ of T K Rajendran as the Director General of Police of Tamil Nadu.The successive writ petitions filed by the petitioner, K Kathiresan, who claimed to be a trade union leader, is targetting a particular officer. It clearly showed that he is dancing to the tunes of others.
He has been lending his shoulder to others to fire the gun. He has given a brand name ‘PIL’ to make it appear as if everything was in larger public interest. He is only making an attempt to give a new life to a dead litigation by producing documents which were very much available with him when the earlier writ petition was filed. The materials produced by him are not sufficient to quash the order ‘appointing’ Rajendran as the head of the police force. “We are, therefore, of the view that the writ petition deserves to be dismissed,” the bench said on Monday.
The bench noted that this is the second writ petition from the petitioner challenging Rajendran’s appointment and the third one for a direction to the EC to remove him from the DGP post and it was dismissed by an order dated March 12 last.
The bench also noted that relying on the counter-affidavit filed by the Principal Director (Investigation), Income Tax department, before the HC in another case filed in 2017, the petitioner substantiated his contention that there was a reference in the seized documents relating to the part played by Rajendran for permitting gutka trade and the receipt of illegal gratification.
The CBI probe should be directed to constitute a special investigating team to investigate the gutka scam involving high level bureaucrats and to unearth the documents which were found missing from the office of the State Chief Secretary. This petition was heard finally on January 30 this year and the judgment was reserved.
Subsequently, the petitioner filed another writ petition before the Madurai bench this year to direct the EC to restrain Rajendran from functioning as DGP. This petition was dismissed by a division bench order dated March 12, it noted.According to the petitioner, while shortlisting the name of Rajendran for DGP post, the State suppressed the material particulars relating to the seizure of incriminating documents suggesting receipt of illegal gratification by him in the gutka scam case.
Bench recuses itself from hearing case
Chennai: Irked over the statement made by the counsel for the woman SP, who had alleged sexual harassment charge against Inspector General Murugan, Joint Commissioner of the DV&AC, a division bench of the Madras High Court has recused itself from hearing the case. Justices K K Sasidharan and P D Audikesavalu referred the matter to the Chief Justice for placing it before some other bench.
Anticipatory bail for ‘Kaduvetti’ Guru’s sister
Chennai: The Madras High Court on Monday granted anticipatory bail to Meenakshi, sister of late PMK functionary ‘Kaduvetti’ Guru, who apprehended arrest following registration of a criminal case against her by the Meensurutti police. The charge against Meenakshi was that she had unleashed a verbal attack on PMK founder S Ramadoss at a meeting held to condole the death of Guru in Kaduvetti on February 1 last.