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Madras HC dismisses plea, TN minister to face fresh trial in graft case
Madras High Court directs Tamil Nadu minister I Periyasamy to face trial in corruption case previously discharged, part of DMK government under CM M K Stalin.
In a setback for Tamil Nadu’s Rural Development Minister I Periyasamy, and the ruling DMK government the Madras High Court on Monday directed that he should face trial in a corruption case in which he was previously discharged by a lower court.
Periyasamy is a senior DMK leader who is part of Chief Minister M K Stalin’s cabinet. This judgment comes just months after the then Higher Education Minister K Ponmudy was disqualified as an MLA last December following his conviction in a disproportionate assets case.
The case pertains to 2008 when Periyasamy was housing minister and he was charged with allotting a plot under the Tamil Nadu Housing Board (TNHB) to the personal security officer (Ganesan) of the then Chief Minister and late DMK patriarch M Karunanidhi. The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) had booked the minister after the AIADMK was elected to power in 2011.
Last year, Justice N Anand Venkatesh had taken up suo motu revision of Periyasamy’s discharge in the case by a special court in 2023. The judge said that the trial should proceed against the Minister besides two other accused individuals.
He also directed the trial proceedings to be conducted on a day-to-day basis. Should they employ any dilatory tactics, the court laid out instructions that the accused can be remanded to judicial custody. Periodic reports on the trial’s progress are to be submitted to the Registrar General of the High Court. The court had not released its order at the time of writing.
The hearing in the case had concluded on February 13. Tamil Nadu advocate general P S Raman representing the DVAC submitted that the minister was discharged on the grounds of lack of prior sanction. Initially, the sanction for prosecution was granted by the then legislative assembly speaker P Dhanapal in December 2012. Periyasamy contested it on the grounds that the authority to give sanction is the Governor. A special court dismissed his discharge petition in July 2016, which was later upheld by both the High Court and the Supreme Court in 2022. So Periyasamy filed a second discharge petition in February 2023 which was accepted by the special court that discharged him on March 17, 2023. The DVAC had not filed an appeal against his discharge leading to the justice taking it up suo moto. Justice Anand Venkatesh said that the DVAC must not be under the impression that the minister has been given a “clean chit” but he was discharged because of technicality– lack of prior sanction.
This is among the revision of acquittal and discharge of six senior politicians of Tamil Nadu taken up by Justice Venkatesh in the High Court last August and September. Besides Periyasamy, others in the dock are– ministers Thangam Thennarasu (finance) and KKSSR Ramachandran (disaster and revenue), former chief minister and expelled AIADMK leader, O Panneerselvam and former AIADMK minister B Valarmathi and against K Ponmudi who has already been disqualified from his post as higher education minister after being convicted in another corruption case last December.
