E-Paper
Vaiko's plea rejected
A POTA court turned down Vaiko's petition to adjourn proceedings against him till TN govt writes to the public prosecutor to withdraw the case against him.
A designated POTA court on Friday turned down a petition by MDMK leader Vaiko to adjourn proceedings in the POTA case against him till such time the state government writes to the public prosecutor to withdraw the case against him.
Designated POTA Judge L Rajendran, accepting the public prosecutor's argument that there was no order restraining the prosecution or court from continuing with the trial, dismissed the petition.
A Division Bench of the High Court had held yesterday the central POTA Review Committee's (PRC) ruling, that the case against Vaiko did not constitute an offence under POTA, was binding on the Tamil Nadu government.
The Bench had held that the PRC's order was binding on the state government only upto the point of addressing a letter to the public prosecutor to consider whether it was a fit case to file an application for withdrawal under section 321 Cr.PC.
The Bench, comprising Chief Justice B Subashan Reddy and Justice VS Sirpurkar, had given their order while disposing of writ petitions filed by the state government challenging the PRC's findings and Vaiko, who sought a direction to the state government to comply with the PRC's order to withdraw the case against him and eight others.
In his petition, Vaiko contended that since his personal liberty was involved, the designated court should adjourn proceedings till the PP got instructions from the state government and acted upon it.
On April 8 last, the Justice AB Saharya Committee had concluded that the case against Vaiko and the others did not fall under the ambit of section 21(3) of POTA and had directed the state Government to immediately take suitable steps to obtain appropriate orders from concerned courts in the case.
