Chennai: The properties owned by the Councillors of Chennai Corporation will be under scanner now. Justice N. Kirubakaran of the Madras high court has enlarged the scope of a litigation relating to the assets of a councillor, in respect of all the councillors elected from 2006 onwards and referred the matter to the Chief Justice to be heard by a division bench as larger public interest is involved in it.
Finding that the declaration made by V. Annamalai, a councillor from Injambakkam in respect of his assets is a farce and there is no mechanism to verify the correctness of the declaration by the state election commission on its own, Justice N. Kirubakaran on Fridayexpanded the scope in respect of all the councillors elected from 2006.
The judge was passing further interim orders on a petition from Pon.Thangavelu, a resident of Injambakkam, which sought a direction to the authorities to conduct an enquiry into the alleged evasion of property tax by V. Annamalai.
When the case came up for hearing on Friday, additional advocate general C. Manishankar produced the declaration of assets made by Annamalai and a few others as it involves volumes of documents.
After perusing the declaration of assets made by Annamalai, the judge said, “The declaration made by Annamalai in 2016 shocked the conscience of this court. Annamalai stated that he did not have any property on his own, whereas the documents produced by the petitioner shows that he has properties. The SEC should verify whether the information provided by the candidates is true or not without waiting for the opponents of the candidate to raise objections.
Though the petitioner made allegations against Annamalai, this court expands the scope in respect of all councillors elected from 2006 as larger public interest is involved in it. Hence, the matter is referred to the Chief Justice to be heard by a division bench”.
Directing the Commissioner of Police to provide protection to the petitioner as he apprehended threat from the councillor, the judge suo motu impleaded DGP as Respondent in the case since the issue involved a criminal investigation.
The judge said the petitioner had also stated that the councillors have amassed wealth disproportionate to their known sources of income. He had specifically quoted Annamalai has purchased several properties in his name and in the name of his relatives. In this connection, he gave a complaint on October 4.
This court perused the records, which revealed that 12 independent houses were acquired by Annamalai and only a meagre amount of '55 and '100 were charged as the tax. Therefore, this court had prima facie satisfied and issued the earlier directions, the judge added.
