CHENNAI: A special court in Chennai on Thursday rejected a memo moved by Tamil Nadu’s Water Resources Minister and DMK’s general secretary Duraimurugan and his wife to transfer the trial of a disproportionate assets case to the special court in Vellore.
This comes four months after the Madras High Court in April set aside a 2007 verdict of the Vellore Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM)discharging the senior leader and his wife from the 2011 case registered by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC)’s Vellore detachment alleging disproportionate assets of Rs 3.9 crore and directed the disposal of the case within six months.
Duraimurugan and his wife moved the X additional district and sessions court, Chennai, to transfer the case to the Principal Subordinate Court/Special Court, Vellore. They cited a 2024 TN government order which notified principal subordinate courts of each district headquarters as special court for trial of offences in cases under Special Acts, Central Acts and those involving MLAs and MPs.
DVAC did not raise any serious objections to the plea. However, the Chennai sessions court noted that in August 2019, the TN government had passed a special order based on a letter of the Registrar of the Madras High Court transferring the DA case trial from the Vellore CJM and appointing the X additional judge in Chennai’s City Civil Court as the special judge to try this case.
In its August 21 order, the court also reasoned that the 2019 GO was a specific order, which has not been modified or cancelled, while the 2024 one was general one that did not include Chennai. In addition, this particular case was pending before the sessions court in Chennai even when the 2024 GO was passed, the court noted.