Chennai: The Madras high court has ordered notice to the Union and State governments and the CBI on a petition from a DMK MLA seeking the constitution of a Special Investigation Team headed by a retired high court judge, to probe into the pan masala / gutka scam.
The scam allegedly involves a Tamil Nadu minister, the current DGP and several other officials of the central and state governments.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M.Sundar adjourned to September 11 further hearing of the Public Interest Litigation filed by DMK MLA J. Anbazhagan.
When the matter came up for hearing, senior counsel P.Wilson, appearing for the petitioner submitted that after the raid on the premises of one gutka manufacturer in Chennai, namely MDM brand, by the Income-Tax department, certain documents were seized, which shows that regular bribes were allegedly paid to the state health minister Vijayabaskar, high level police officials including the present DGP and several other top bureaucrats and central government officials from Central Excise department.
The investigation into this matter by the state police will not be fair or impartial and should be transferred to CBI, Wilson added. Advocate general R.Muthukumaraswamy submitted the state government has directed the DVAC to probe into the matter and the DVAC is conducting the probe.
One other petition filed by Kathiresan before the Madurai Bench came to be disposed of with certain directions including the direction to the DVAC to constitute a special team to investigate this matter, he added. Wilson said the petition before the Madurai Bench was specifically targeted against Rajendran's extension of service as the DGP and all the directions in the said judgment can only be viewed in that context. The vigilance commissioner was nothing more than the home secretary under whom the entire police department functions. Hence, handing over the investigation to the vigilance commissioner or DVAC was only farcical, Wilson added.
