Supreme Court asks Tamil Nadu govt to file affidavit if prosecution against ruling DMK Ministers dropped after sanction

New Delhi: The Supreme Court has told the Tamil Nadu government to give an undertaking that there are no pending cases against any sitting or former minister or legislator of the ruling DMK, in which sanction for prosecution was given earlier, but subsequently the criminal cases were dropped even before the investigation could be completed.

A Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan, and N Kotiswar Singh issued the directive while hearing a plea filed in October 2023 by one Karuppiah Gandhi, a Chennai-based lawyer.

Senior advocate D S Naidu, appearing for the petitioner, claimed that the sanctions for the prosecution of some state ministers and politicians were withheld on political considerations.

The bench asked the state government to file an affidavit in this regard on the plea seeking transfer of trials pending in Tamil Nadu against incumbent ministers out of the state.

The court granted two weeks' time to Additional Advocate General of the state to file a specific affidavit that there is no case against any sitting or a former minister or legislator of the political party in power, where earlier the sanction was accorded for prosecution but even before the investigation could be taken to a logical conclusion, such consent was withdrawn and as such the criminal cases were dropped.

State AAG and senior advocate Amit Anand Tiwari, representing the TN government, argued that the petitioner had moved before the court with unclean hands.

Naidu vehemently argued that there were many instances where sanctions were withdrawn before the completion of investigations.

"This is a malady not confined to Tamil Nadu, but across the country. If you open Pandora's box, it will come back to you only," the bench said.

The bench, however, asked the state counsel to file an affidavit and fixed the matter for further hearing on September 17.