Madras High Court Chief Justice Allows Continuing Hearing For Suo Motu Criminal Petitions Against Sitting And Former Tamil Nadu Ministers

Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjay V Gangapurwala has decided to allow Justice N Anand Venkatesh to proceed with the hearing of six suo motu criminal revision petitions initiated by him last year, reported The Hindu.

These petitions pertain to the acquittal or discharge of three sitting ministers, a former chief minister, and two ex-ministers from various criminal cases.

The Supreme Court on Monday (5 February) had asked the Chief Justice of the Madras High Court to take a fresh call on which judge(s) should hear suo motu proceedings initiated last year to revive corruption cases against several Tamil Nadu politicians, including sitting ministers [Thiru KKSSR Ramachandran vs. State Rep by Additional Superintendent of Police and ors].

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Notably, Justice Venkatesh had initiated proceedings on these cases last year.

Initially, Justice Venkatesh had scheduled hearings for some cases in February, deferring others to a later date.

However, Ramachandran approached the Supreme Court, arguing that Justice Venkatesh had not obtained prior approval from the chief justice before initiating the suo motu proceedings.

The apex court then requested the chief justice to revisit the issue.

In response, during the hearing of the revision petitions against Ramachandran and three others, Justice Venkatesh clarified that the chief justice had specifically assigned all six suo motu revision petitions to him.

He scheduled the batch of four cases for hearings between 27 and 29 February, and again on 5 March, granting counsel additional time to prepare their arguments.

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