The Madras High Court on Wednesday dismissed a PIL petition filed against the appointment of a one-man Commission of Inquiry to probe into the “circumstances and situation leading to the hospitalisation” of former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa on September 22 last and the “subsequent [medical] treatment” provided till her death on December 5.
The first Division Bench of Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M. Sundar rejected the plea after disagreeing with the petitioner, P.A. Joseph, president of a union of loadmen at Koyambedu market here known for filing such PIL petitions regularly, that a resolution in the Legislative Assembly was mandatory for the appointment of such a commission of inquiry.
Referring to Section 3 of the Commissions of Inquiry Act of 1952, the judges said that the provision should ideally be dissected into two parts with one stating that the government ‘could’ appoint a commission of inquiry on its own if it was necessary to do so and that it ‘should’ appoint a commission if a resolution to that effect had been passed in the Legislative Assembly.
‘Flawed understanding’
Stating that the two parts of the legal provision need not be confused with each other, the judges held that the petitioner was not right in his claim that both – government’s opinion as well as an Assembly resolution – were required for the constitution of a commission of inquiry to conduct probe into issues of public importance.
The Division Bench also said that the issue does not call for the court’s interference since the petitioner had not levelled any kind of allegation against A. Arumughaswamy, a retired judge of the Madras High Court, who was appointed by the government on September 25 to probe into the circumstances that led to hospitalisation of Jayalalithaa.
In his affidavit, the petitioner had only claimed that it would be better to appoint a Commission of Inquiry comprising of three retired Supreme Court judges in order to gain the confidence of the common people on the probe. He also pointed out that a petition filed by him to constitute such a commission was already pending in the court.
Referring to a counter-affidavit filed by the State Government in response to that petition, he said that the government had then taken a stand that there was no need for probing the issue since there were no doubts over the medication provided to the former Chief Minister.