Institute of Legal and Management Studies

The Supreme Court today asked the Tamil Nadu government to state on affidavit that no sanction for prosecution has been withdrawn in cases against any sitting/former Minister or any politician of the ruling DMK party without the completion of a proper investigation.

"[State] seeks and is granted 2 weeks' time to file a specific affidavit that there is no case against any sitting or a former Minister or any other politician of the political party in power where earlier 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was accorded for prosecution but even before the investigation could be taken to a logical conclusion, such consent was withdrawn and as such the criminal procedure dropped", ordered the Court.

A bench of Justices Surya Kant, Ujjal Bhuyan and N Kotiswar Singh passed the order on a Chennai-based lawyer's public interest litigation seeking transfer of trials pending in Tamil Nadu against incumbent Ministers out of the state.

As per the petitioner's claims, sanctions accorded for prosecution of some State Ministers/politicians were withdrawn by agencies due to political motivations and the prosecuting agencies were also under tremendous pressure.

Senior Advocate Amit Anand Tiwari appeared for the State and alleged that the petitioner had approached the Court with unclean hands. The bench however said that the State would be filing the affidavit to satisfy the Court, not the petitioner.

Senior Advocate DS Naidu appeared for the petitioner and submitted that there were many instances where sanctions were withdrawn before completion of investigations. He prayed for a judicial oversight in such cases.

In the backdrop of aspersions cast on the petitioner's bonafides, Justice Bhuyan posed to Naidu, "This is a malady not confined to Tamil Nadu, it is across the country. If you open Pandora's box, it will come back to you only".

Story to be updated.

Case Title: KARUPPIAH GANDHI Versus THE STATE OF TAMIL NADU AND ORS., W.P.(Crl.) No. 501/2023