The Supreme Court on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition which prayed to conduct trials against incumbent State Ministers of Tamil Nadu to be shifted to other States has asked for response from the Tamil Nadu (TN) government and the State’s Director General of Police (DGP).
The Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Dipankar Datta issued notice to the Tamil Nadu government for the same.
Chennai-based Advocate Karrupiah Gandhi filed a petition saying that at present, the State prosecution does not inspire confidence in ensuring free and fair trials.
As per the petition, there have been many cases in the past against various Ministers of the current State Government which have resulted in either closure reports or acquittal.
The petition mentioned how not filing closure report indicated serious suspicion and undermined the public’s faith and confidence in judicial process.
With this, the petitioner also requested for handing over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the ongoing cases pertaining to the same.
The petitioner said that politics of the State influenced probes against Ministers of different political parties resulting in culprits going scot-free.
Hence, the cases must be taken up on urgent basis with status reports submitted on action being taken in this regard.
The petitioner was represented by Senior Advocate Dama Seshadri Naidu, along with Advocates Ravi Prakash, Samir Malik and Astu Khandelwal.
The single-judge bench of Justice N Anand Venkatesh at the Madras High Court had recently initiated a batch of suo motu revision petitions against the discharge or acquittal of six sitting as well as former Tamil Nadu ministers in cases of disproportionate assets and others.
However, the case was shifted to the Madurai Bench of the High Court later.