The bench also sought the government’s response on the number of corruption cases handled by the DVAC in the last three financial years and the extent to which DVAC officials themselves have indulged in corruption. 

The first bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy issued the direction on a plea relating to the seizure of cash from a sub-registrar’s office in Villivakkam in 2018. 

Rejecting the submission by the government pleader that all was well, the bench wondered as to why no action was taken against the sub-registrar except a transfer, and even asked whether the official was a collection agent of a big fish. 

“We have no doubt you (DVAC) have a very attractive website, 20,000 pages of nothing written. But we want to get to the meat of the matter. Are we in such a fool’s paradise that we have to believe that there is no corruption over here,” asked the Chief justice, adding: “People don’t switch on the floodlights when they receive bribes or there is some asteroid falling in with money”? “At the end of the day, the country can be ruled without politicians. The bureaucratic machinery runs it. The politicians only decide on policies... Bureaucrats are capable of running the show if there are no politicians,” Chief Justice Banerjee noted. 

“We want to see if we can put a mechanism in place because corruption is cancerous. Corruption will ultimately kill us,” the bench said. The case has been posted for further hearing to three weeks when the State is expected to submit its response.