CHENNAI: High drama unfolded in the Madras High Court on Tuesday over the hearing of the writ petitions filed by the Tamil Nadu government and its business entity, Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (Tasmac), against the Enforcement Directorate’s (ED) raids as a division bench slammed the state government for keeping it in the dark over the transfer petitions filed in the Supreme Court to shift the case to the apex court.
In strong remarks, the division bench of justices S M Subramaniam and K Rajasekar said the state government had “insulted” and “disrespected” the court and misrepresented the facts.
As agreed by the parties in the previous hearing, the petitions were listed for hearing on Tuesday. When the hearing came up, a special government pleader sought ‘pass over’ of the case to enable a senior counsel to appear.
When the case was taken up at 12 pm, state government pleader Edwin Prabhakar informed the court about the transfer petitions. Even as he made the submissions, the bench grilled him as to why it had not been informed as soon as the court assembled in the morning or at least when the pass over was sought for.
You have abused court’s process & insulted the court: Madras HC
“What prevented you from informing us about the transfer petitions filed in the SC. The cases were listed after it was agreed to go for final hearing,” the bench asked. Wondering why the state approached the SC after filing writ petitions in the HC, it said, “You have abused the process of the court and insulted the court.”
Questioning the intention behind the writ petitions, the bench asked, “Government filed the petitions for protecting the public interest or the interests of a few Tasmac officials?”
Slamming the government for disrespecting the court, the bench said the matter must be argued after the lunch recess.
Meanwhile, when the transfer petitions came up for hearing at the SC on Tuesday, the two-judge bench, led by Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar, told senior advocate and former Attorney General of India, Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for TN government, that the issues should be decided by the Madras HC and the state can approach the apex court later if needed. Rohatgi agreed with the top court’s suggestions and decided to withdraw the pleas. The court allowed him, on behalf of the state government and Tasmac, dismissing them as withdrawn.
When the Madras HC bench reassembled after lunch, it was informed by Additional Solicitor General S V Raju, representing ED, that the SC had refused to shift the case from the HC to the apex court.
Though the bench wanted the arguments to commence immediately, it reluctantly permitted Advocate General P S Raman, as sought by him, to take a short time to get instructions from the government. Later, Raman told the court that Tasmac will commence arguments; as such, senior counsel Vikram Chaudhari began placing the arguments.
As the proceedings of the day were about to end, Special Public Prosecutor for ED, N Ramesh, asked whether the oral order issued by the previous bench of justices M S Ramesh and N Senthilkumar restraining the ED from proceeding further still prevailed.
The bench said it had not passed any interim order, indicating no legal impediments to the ED. The A-G objected and said the ED had given an oral undertaking that they would not proceed with the probe and that still prevailed. However, the bench said it has to go by the contents written in the order of the previous bench. It posted the matter for further hearing on Wednesday.
