Supreme Court to hear batch of cases against former DMK Ministers

The Supreme Court will hear on Monday a batch of cases against former DMK Ministers challenging orders passed by the Madras High Court upholding the orders of the trial judges discharging them for offences of disproportionate assets under the Prevention of Corruption Act. The Supreme Court in 2010 had issued notices to former Ministers Veerapandi Arumugam, Durai Murugan, M.R.K. Panneerselvam, I. Periasamy, S. Regupathy, K.N. Nehru and Ko.Si. Mani and former Mayor of Madurai P. Kulandai seeking their response on the special leave petitions challenging the High Court orders. These batch of petitions are coming up for further hearing on March 19 before a Bench headed by Justice B.S. Chauhan. The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption had lodged complaints under the Prevention of Corruption Act against various DMK functionaries, who had held office between 1996 and 2001. The trial courts had allowed the petitions for discharge without a trial and these orders were upheld by the High Court. Since the then DMK Government did not prefer appeals, The petitioners J.M. Arumugam, P. Ravindran and S. Jayapal had filed revision petitions before the High Court pointing out that once charge sheet had been filed and a prima facie case had been made out the discharge of the accused without trial was contrary to the legal position with regard to cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act. It was also pointed out that all the accused were holding high offices in the State Government due to which State had not challenged the discharge orders. After the High Court dismissed the revision petitions they filed the appeals seeking to quash the impugned orders and for a direction that the trial should be allowed to proceed further in accordance with law.