New Delhi, Feb 17: The Supreme Court today gave a go ahead to the Central Pota Review Committee to proceed with the cases of MDMK leader Vaiko and 'Nakkeeran' editor R R Gopal on February 19. A bench of Chief Justice V N Khare and Justice S H Kapadia, however, made it clear that the committee would not pass any orders till March 8 when three special leave petitions (SLP) by the Tamil Nadu government challenging the jurisdiction of the review committee would come up for hearing.

The dates for hearing the SLPs was fixed on a request made by Tamil Nadu counsel C S Vaidynathan. The Tamil Nadu government had questioned the jurisdiction of the Pota panel headed by Justice A B Saharya to go into the Pota cases pending in courts.
It was the contention of the Tamil Nadu government that the Pota review committee being an administrative setup could not interfere in judicial proceedings.
However, the Pota Review Committee by its order dated January 23 dismissed the Tamil Nadu government's petition challenging its jurisdiction.
The Tamil Nadu government thereafter challenged the committee's order dated February 4 before the madras high court which up held the order of the committee. The three SLPs were then filed in the Supreme Court which fixed the hearing for March 8. Bureau Report