Sanction of Chief Whip and Assembly not required to initiate action against TN minister: Madras HC

CHENNAI: A division bench of the Madras High Court has ordered that prior sanction of chief government whip as well as the state assembly is not required to act upon complaints filed against commercial tax minister KC Veeramani in connection with a land grab case registered in 2017 at Vellore.

The bench emphasized that Veeramani had carried out the alleged act in his private capacity and not as a minister.

There is certainly no necessity to obtain the prior permission of the assembly and the chief government whip to initiate action in connection to the alleged offences by the minister, the bench added.

The first bench of Chief Justice AP Sahi and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy passed the order in the appeal moved by B Ramamoorthy and J Jayaprakash, owners of a 7.10 acre prime land in Vellore in which they were illegally evicted by the minister and businessman Sekar Reddy.

Denying the allegation, the minister submitted that he was not a party to the real estate agreement between the petitioners and the businessman and that he had no knowledge about it.

The minister submitted that he had nothing to do with the transaction either in his personal or official capacity.

According to the petitioner, the minister had allegedly brokered a deal worth Rs 100 crore with the businessman to evict them from the property.

The petitioner added that the minister using his political power threatened them with dire consequences if they did not vacate the property.

On June 22, a single judge of the court dismissed the petition as not maintainable on June 22.

However, the petitioners appealed before the division bench. The bench after passing the directions disposed of the plea.