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The Supreme Court stayed the operation, until further orders, of the judgment of Madras High Court which ordered CBI inquiry into corruption allegations against Tamil Nadu Chief Minister E. Palaniswami. The stay order was passed by the SC bench of CJI Ranjan Gogoi, Justice S K Kaul and Justice K M Joseph while admitting the special leave petition filed by Palaniswami against the Madras HC judgment.
On October 12, the Madras HC ordered a CBI investigation into the corruption allegations the CM, which pertain to the awarding of contracts of highway projects worth crores to his relatives. Justice A D Jagadish Chandira of High Court expressed dissatisfaction over the clean chit given to the CM by the State Vigilance Department.
The HC order was passed in a petition filed by R S Bharathi, Secretary of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam(DMK), the opposition party. Bharati alleged in the petition that the cost of World Bank funded State Highway projects were artificially inflated, and the work was awarded to persons related to the Chief Minister. It was alleged that in order to eliminate and dissuade all eligible contractors from participating in the bid by adopting intimidating tactics and thereby, the provisions of the Transparency of Tenders Act, 1998 and its rules have been violated with impunity.
The further allegation was that the case for criminal misconduct under the provisions of Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 had been made out against the present Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and he had amassed wealth by using his office as Highways Minister.
The petition was originally filed for registration of FIR against the CM. After the filing of the case, the State Vigilance department initiated preliminary enquiry. After such enquiry, the Advocate General informed the Court that no such case was made out against the CM. The Court expressed their opinion that the enquiry had not been done in a fair manner and is nothing but a perfunctory exercise and thereby, the case has to be necessarily transfered to any other independent agency not under the control of the persons in power.
The HC noted that the allegations were made against the Chief Minister and his relatives who were the contractors. The Department which has awarded the contract is under the administrative control of the CM and the agency which is inquiring into the complaint was also under the administrative control of CM, as he was holding the portfolios of Home Affairs and Police.
The High Court went on to observe that it does not need the wisdom of Solomon to infer that right from the receipt of the complaint and the registration of the preliminary enquiry, the conduct of the respondent had been aimed with a sole objective of closing the case by filing a negative report as no case made out.Hence, the files were directed to be handed over to Joint Director, Central Bureau of Investigation (South Zone) College Road, Nungambakkam, Chennai. The Joint Director was directed to depute an officer under him in therank of a Superintendent of Police to conduct a fair and independent investigation.
The Court made it clear that it has not expressed anything regarding the merits of the allegations.
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