In a significant development, the Supreme Court on Friday issued an interim stay on a Madras High Court directive that had earlier ordered Tamil Nadu ministers KKSSR Ramachandran and Thangam Thenarasu to face trial in disproportionate assets cases. The apex court’s decision comes after the high court set aside earlier orders from a trial court that discharged the ministers from these charges.
Justices Hrishikesh Roy and P K Mishra, presiding over the bench, have also issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu government regarding the appeal filed by the ministers against the high court’s decision. The case has been scheduled for a hearing in four weeks.
The controversy stems from the Madras High Court’s decision on August 7, which overturned the Virudhunagar Special Court’s earlier rulings from July 20, 2023, and December 12, 2022, that had discharged the ministers. These rulings were related to cases of allegedly accumulating wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income during their tenures as ministers in the previous DMK regime.
Senior advocates Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, representing the ministers, argued that the high court had erred in its decision by conducting a suo motu criminal revision and rejecting the closure reports submitted by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC). They contended that the high court, in its criminal revision, should not have dismissed the DVAC’s findings as unacceptable.
Tamil Nadu Advocate General Pattabhi Sundar Raman expressed the state’s intention to challenge the high court’s ruling further by filing a special leave petition. He highlighted the undue interference with the DVAC’s findings by the high court’s order.
Justice N Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court had earlier criticized the way DVAC officials allegedly colluded to prevent a criminal trial against the sitting ministers, describing the scenario as “quietly and indecently buried within the precincts of the Special Court.”
The high court had ordered the ministers to appear before the Special Court on September 9 and September 11, respectively, and mandated that the trial proceed on a day-to-day basis as per the Supreme Court’s directives in previous landmark cases.
