CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Thursday allowed the Tamil Nadu government to withdraw the appeals filed by the previous AIADMK government against quashing of a court order seeking a probe against senior DMK leaders MK Stalin and Duraimurugan into the alleged irregularities in the construction of the new secretariat at the Omandurar Estate during the DMK regime between 2006 and 2011.
A division bench of Justices R Suresh Kumar and K Kumaresh Babu passed the orders, allowing the state government to take back the appeals filed against the court order directing an inquiry by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC).
AIADMK’s former MP J Jayavardhan, the party’s candidate from Chennai South constituency for the upcoming election, had moved the court seeking to implead himself in the matter to oppose the DMK government’s decision to withdraw the appeals.
The bench stated that even though a decision was taken earlier to direct the DVAC to conduct a detailed inquiry, it was set aside in the impugned judgments against which the state had preferred these intra-court appeals, but now it seeks to withdraw the same.
When a person has instituted or initiated proceedings before the court, it is always open to him to withdraw or abandon his claim, the bench noted.
“The court cannot insist on a party to conduct the case, particularly when a party (the government) wishes to abandon the case without reserving any right,” the bench observed.
It added that withdrawal of the appeal by the government ‘cannot take away the rights’ of the impleading petitioner to seek ‘appropriate remedy’ in the manner known to law, if he is so advised. The bench said, “The request of the appellants (the government) are taken on record and the writ appeals are dismissed as withdrawn.”
The bench closed the impleading petition, holding it would be a ‘futile exercise’ to pass orders even though the petitioner had the locus standi to be represented in the intra-court appeals. The petition to withdraw the appeal was filed by the government after the DMK came to power, since the appeals were moved by the previous AIADMK government against an order of the high court quashing a GO for a probe by the DVAC based on the findings of the disbanded inquiry commission headed by retired judge Justice R Raghupathy.