Madurai: Madras High Court on Monday sought response from the government on former DMK Minister Thangam Thennarasu`s petition, seeking to quash a government order appointing Special Public Prosecutors for vigilance cases filed against former DMK ministers.
When the case came up before Justice T Raja, it was submitted that a similar case was filed by another former DMK minister KK SSR Ramachandran.
The Judge then directed the registry to club the two cases and sought a response from the government.
Thenarrasu, in his petition had contended that government had filed several disproportionate wealth cases and appointed a retired legal advisor A Jeyabalan as SPP for vigilance case against him "due to political enmity."
Government had appointed SPPs only for vigilance cases related to former DMK ministers and classified the cases of the persons belonging to DMK separately. This had been done with malafide intentions and to take vengeance against them for political reasons, he had alleged.
Thennarasu submitted that the Principal Secretary of Public (SC) Department had passed an impugned order on July 11 2013, invoking powers under Sec 24(8) of CrPC and appointed 15 SPPs to conduct cases only against former DMK ministers.
He contended that when hundreds of disproportionate wealth cases are pending before the court, classifying and appointing SPPs, particularly targeting former ministers, was illegal and made with malafide intentions.
Appointment of SPP for a particular political party member treating him as a class was arbitrary and would set a wrong precedent to `harass` the accused persons, he contended. Hence, he sought quashing the GO of appointing SPPs.
PTI
