'Court Smelt A Rat' Says Justice Anand Venkatesh On Discharge Of DMK Ministers Thangam Thennarasu And KKSSR Ramachandran In Assets Cases

In his orders regarding the reasons for the suo moto revision of the discharge of senior Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) ministers Thangam Thennarasu and KKSSR Ramachandran in disproportionate assets cases filed by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), Justice N Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court said that he was shocked at the manner in which the Special Court for MPs/MLAs in Srivilliputhur had handled the case.

Regarding the similarity in the way both these cases were handled, he wrote, "It was a deja vu moment for this Court as both orders revealed a well-orchestrated pattern: the Special Court had taken cognizance of the final reports in 2013/14. Discharge applications were filed, and the cases were adjourned for months and years on end till 2021.

"In 2021, the political fortunes in the State smiled at the main accused who regained their positions as Ministers in the State Cabinet.

"A few months thereafter the State prosecution very magnanimously came forward and offered to conduct “further investigation”. The product of this “further investigation” was a “closure report” tailored to support the grounds for discharge.

"The Special Court was then presented with a perfect fiat accompli as the prosecution suddenly whitewashed its earlier final report and presented a picture of complete innocence. On its part, the Special Court accepted the closure report and proceeded to discharge the accused."

"This Court smelt a rat and called for the entire records of these two cases."

Regarding the "further investigation", Justice Venkatesh wrote that the Investigating Officer had "supplanted" the earlier report instead of "supplementing" the earlier report in order to give a clean chit to the accused.

He also wrote that the "further investigation" did not have anything "further" about it except for "furthering" the interests of those accused.

Giving a cricketing analogy, he wrote, "It is all too apparent that upon a change of power in the State in 2021, the identities of the accused and the prosecution were obliterated as all the players in the game suddenly found themselves belonging to the same team.

"Realizing this, the umpire ie., the Special Court appears to have decided that the wisest course open to it was to get itself out hit wicket."

According to a report by The Hindu, the supplementary report concluded that the family of Ramachandran had excess savings of Rs 1.49 lakh and not disproportionate assets of Rs 44.59 lakh.

In the case of Thennarasu, the supplementary report concluded that there were excess savings of Rs 1.54 lakh and not disproportionate assets of Rs 74.85 lakh.

The next date of hearing in the matter is 20 September.

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