A public interest litigation petition filed in the Madras High Court alleging irregularities in the State government’s move to dole out ₹2,000 to families living below the poverty line (BPL) took a serious turn on Tuesday, with the government accusing the petitioner of having filed a “manipulated” Government Order before the court.

Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices S. Manikumar and Subramonium Prasad, Advocate General Vijay Narayan said the PIL petitioner, M. Karunanidhi, 51, of Sankarapuram Taluk of Villupuram district, must be ordered to explain how he could file a manipulated G.O. in the court as part of the records.

The A-G pointed out that the petitioner, who reportedly belonged to a BPL family with an annual income of ₹22,000, had heavily relied on a G.O. issued by the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj Department on December 13 to back his claim of the cash dole being given even to those above the poverty line with the impending elections in mind.

‘Heavily manipulated’

However, a copy of the Government Order, which had to be read along with its annexure, produced by the petitioner before the court, had been heavily manipulated with one crucial paragraph completely missing, another having been edited to a great extent and a few other paragraphs having been subjected to changes, he said.

He also brought it to the notice of the court that the annexure produced by the petitioner contained the date December 12, 2018 below the section officer’s signature, whereas the annexure to the original G.O. had been signed by the section officer only on December 13, 2018, the day when the G.O. was issued. When questioned by the judges, a designated senior counsel representing the petitioner initially said that he would certainly answer the issue after a consultation with his instructing counsel. He also said that the manipulations alleged by the A.G. were actually not in the two-page G.O., but only in the seven-page annexure to the G.O.

However, when the judges took serious note of the allegations and wanted to know the penal provisions under which a litigant could be prosecuted for filing manipulated documents in court, the senior counsel said a probe may be ordered to find out whether it was the litigant or the government who had manipulated the G.O.

“An investigation should be done to find out when it was manipulated, either before the filing of this petition or after the filing of the case,” the counsel said and expressed his willingness to ask his client to file an affidavit with regard to the source of the G.O. produced by him before the court.

Stating that they would pass appropriate orders on the issue after going through the papers, the judges heard the PIL petition on merits too and reserved their orders.

Defending the State, the A.G. contended that an elaborate verification process would be carried out before depositing the cash in the bank accounts of the beneficiaries.