Madras High Court bench rejects PIL into Tangedco ‘scam’

Dismissing the PIL filed by C Selvaraj, a former employee of TNEB, a division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam said, “We are not satisfied that the petition is supported

by adequate materials. Further the matter is still receiving the consideration of the Committee of Public Undertakings (COPU) and the petition thus seems to be an endeavour to cause embarrassment to the Tangedco without there being any final verdict on the accounting procedures or financial aspects by the concerned authorities. The concerned appeal is still pending qua two views of the TN Electricity Regulatory Commission (minority and majority). We are, thus not inclined to interfere in this PIL”.

It was enunciated that once the CAG report was laid before the Assembly, it was dealt with by the Rules and Procedures of the Assembly. The role of CAG report was to enable the Legislature to oversee that functioning of the government and it was for the Legislature to take action on the basis of CAG reports or to direct the government to take action on the basis thereof.

On the conspectus of the legal position enunciated aforesaid and the averments made in the petition, it was quite obvious from the cryptic petition that there only allegations of misappropriation and misutilisation of thousands of crores. It, thus, appears that the past history of disputes between the petitioner and its employer, the Tangedco, has coloured the thinking of the petitioner to make allegations largely on the press reporting or averment in other petitions, other than the aspect of minority view, of the commission, which was stated to be the subject matter of challenge in appeal proceedings, the bench added.

The bench said the substratum of the submissions of the counsel for the petitioner really arose over the aspects emanating from the report of the CAG, the procedure for which has been explained aforesaid. “We are faced with the position where in terms of the procedure, the COPU is stated to be still examining the matter, and no finality has been achieved as yet. Only on submission of the COPU report, the same being placed before the Legislative Assembly, would the occasion arise for final view to emerge in terms of Rule 217 (1) and even the reports of COPU are to be treated as confidential until presented to the Assembly. Thus, what is the confidential material disclosed to us was to satisfy our conscience and cannot be relied upon or that material required to be produced and filed before the court”, the bench added.