CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Wednesday ordered notice to the Centre and the Tamil Nadu government on a petition praying for transferring the probe into an alleged bid to poach a TVK MLA to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) from the Greater Chennai Police.
The first bench of Chief Justice Sushrut Arvind Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan directed the respondents to file a counter-affidavit within four weeks to the petition filed by T Ramesh, of Karur, one of the arrested persons in the alleged poaching case registered by the Triplicane Police on June 29 based on a complaint lodged by Uthangarai TVK MLA N Elaiyaraja.
The bench stayed the investigation proceedings against Ramesh till the next hearing, which is after four weeks.
Ramesh, who was arrested on July 1, 2026 by the Triplicane police from his Karur residence, filed the petition challenging the constitutional validity of section 17 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 to the extent that it excludes or overrides the mandatory safeguards prescribed under section 35 of the Bhartiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita, 2023, thereby violating Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution.
Appearing for Ramesh, Senior counsel V Raghavachari assisted by Muthuchharan Sundresh, submitted that Ramesh was arrested by the police without issuing mandatory notice under section 35 (3) of BNSS.
“For every other person, they issued notice under section 35 (3) of BNSS but did not issue it for Ramesh,” the counsel said, adding he has been incarcerated unnecessarily without even hearing him only because he had a telephonic call with a person.
Doubting the veracity of the complaint lodged by the MLA, the counsel questioned the delay of three full days in submitting the complaint after the first accused in the case IPDS Thirunavukkarasu contacted him with the offer of money.
Since the matter pertains to the Assembly and the investigating officer is reporting to the state, we have no confidence on the entire investigation proceedings of the police and so, the CBI probe shall be ordered, he said.
However, State Public Prosecutor R John Sathyan submitted that the petitioner was part of the group that had hatched the conspiracy to poach “not just one MLA but ten MLAs” of the ruling party by offering a huge amount of money.
He was in touch with two of the other accused persons and had stayed in a hotel in Chennai, the State PP said, and informed that Rs. 2.8 crore has been seized by the police and so much material has been unearthed, and even hawala money transaction too was traced by the police in the case.
Advocate General Vijay Narayan objected to passing any interim stay on the proceedings of the police since the investigation was in the preliminary stage.