CHENNAI: Pulling up a petitioner, who submitted that the Court was threatening him instead of answering the queries posed, the Madras High Court dismissed his plea seeking to transfer to the CBI, investigation into the suicide of an engineer with the State Agriculture Department.
Petitioner’s conduct in the Court was not appreciable, noted the vacation bench comprising Justice S Tamilvaanan and Justice S Manikumar.
The Bench dismissed the petition by advocate R Krishnamurthy of Manali, which stated that people of Tamil Nadu had no confidence and faith in the probe by the Crime Branch-CID, holding that the petitioner had failed to provide any material to substantiate his allegation.
The plea was filed over the suicide of Muthukumarasamy, an Executive Engineer in the Agriculture Department, on February 20.
The petitioner alleged that the official was under pressure from the then Agriculture Minister, ‘Agri’ SS Krishnamurthy in connection with appointment of drivers to the Department.
“It was only after protests by various political parties and employees unions that the police registered a criminal case against the minister and a chief engineer, and subsequently the case was transferred to the CB-CID,” Krishnamurthy said.
According to him, a fair and free investigation could not be ensured by the State-controlled agency, as the accused was a former minister and MLA of the ruling party.
Since there was a reasonable apprehension that the investigation would not be fair, the petitioner sought the court to transfer the case to CBI.
But when the court posed specific questions to the petitioner on who and what was the external influence that abetted the engineer’s suicide, there was no answer from the petitioner.
Holding that there is no merit in the case, the Bench dismissed the petition without any cost.
It hoped sincerely that the advocate would correct himself in future.
‘not hindering Appointment of judges’
In response to Madras High Court Chief Justice’s remark that the process of appointing judges was often obstructed by advocates, the Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA) said on Wednesday they did not hinder the process in any way. “Our actions were not against filling up vacancies in High Court but for choosing competent persons for the post and also for transparency in appointment,” said MHAA president RC Paul Kanakaraj.
While disposing of a PIL seeking direction to the Registrar General on prescribing a maximum time limit for disposal of cases pending before the HC, the First Bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice TS Sivagnanam had said that filling up vacancies of judges was “often obstructed by the action of advocates”. The Bench added that the mismatch between the inflow of cases and the judges’ strength available made it difficult to render justice on time.