Tamil Nadu Advocate General R. Shanmuga Sundaram resigned on Wednesday citing personal reasons. In a resignation letter which was circulated in the DMK legal wing group, Sundaram said that he will return to private practice.
Sundaram is learnt to have stepped down from the post of AG following several legal setbacks for the DMK in the past one year. DMK legal wing’s failure in handling the disproportionate assets case of former minister K. Ponmudy and his conviction was the trigger point. The conviction apparently had upset the DMK leadership, particularly Chief Minister M.K. Stalin.
Sources say Stalin personally wanted to revamp the legal wing as it had lost in most of the important legal issues including cases against sitting ministers like Ponmudy and V. Senthil Balaji and in issues like RSS route march.
Shanmuga Sundaram, who is one of the blue eyed boys of the DMK, was chosen to the top post by Stalin himself, after the party came to power in 2021, because of his track record. Sundaram, a senior advocate, is one among the many legal luminaries in DMK, who had helped the party win several criminal cases in the past.
Sundaram was in fact the man behind the most infamous TANSI land deal case against former Chief minister J. Jayalalithaa. He was the advocate who filed the petition in the case on behalf of DMK organising secretary R.S. Bharathi, in which she was convicted and later acquitted by the high court. TANSI case was one of the black marks in Jayalalithaa’s political career leading to her downfall later.
In fact this case was the turning point in Sundaram’s life as well. On May 30, 1995, Sundaram was physically assaulted by Jayalalithaa’s supporters and he lost two of his fingers in the attack. Later in 1996-2001, when DMK assumed power, he was appointed as the public prosecutor of the Madras High Court and later M. Karunanidhi elevated him as a Rajya Sabha member on a DMK ticket.
Sundaram was the go to man, in all criminal cases, for the DMK during the past three decades. However, as Advocate General, DMK insiders say, Sundaram did not deliver in times of distress for the party. Apparently, he was always successful in winning cases on the writ side and of civil nature. He is an expert in criminal law and not a civil lawyer. In the past two years, he has fallen from grace with the judiciary and the government.
During the corona period, while arguing in an online hearing, a division bench pulled him for not preparing in the case and the judges told him point blank to depute his juniors to argue the case. On more than one occasion, he was snubbed by the bench and the judges in the Madras high court after he took over as AG. Though personally he is close to Stalin’s family, it is believed that he failed to deliver, especially at a time when the DMK is having a running battle in the judiciary.
The DMK had lost legally when the RSS knocked the doors of the Madras High Court seeking permission for a route march. The party also faced setbacks in high profile cases like 10.5 percent internal reservation to the Vanniyars and the case against Udhayanidhi Stalin in the Sanatan Dharma issue.
However, changing the AG in the midst of the tenure shows that the government is vulnerable especially when the cases of several ministers are pending before the Madras High Court.
The DMK’s legal wing, according to party insiders, did not perform as expected in the past two years. In fact, in the beginning, it could not find ways to clear the statutory logjam created by a government order issued in 2017 to field law officers in the Madras High Court. Every time a new government assumes power, a new set of 75 law officers are appointed to the principal seat of Madras high Court and another 44 to the Madurai bench of Madras High Court. Later in December 2021, when the appointments were made after a long struggle, there were rumblings within the party. Then, in the High Court, there were two teams of the DMK legal wing, which never got together due to intra-party feud. In fact, in the recent hearing with regard to minister Senthil Balaji’s bail application, DMK’s Rajya Sabha member and senior counsel N.R. Elango was replaced by senior advocate Ariyama Sundaram.
Why P.S. Raman?
P.S. Raman alias Bharat Raman who served as AG between 2009 and 2011 during the erstwhile DMK regime has been appointed as the AG for the second time. Raman, a seasoned advocate, is close to the DMK first family. According to highly placed sources in the state government, Sundaram’s resignation and a proposal to appoint Raman has been forwarded to governor R.N. Ravi. The government is waiting for the issuance of the appointment order. Once the governor issues orders, Raman will assume office as the AG.
Son of former advocate general and former additional solicitor general V.P. Raman, P.S. Raman had been handling cars related to constitutional, civil, commercial, criminal, property law, indirect tax and intellectual property matters and had appeared in several leading cases before the Madras High Court. He was designated as a senior counsel at the age of 44.
In April 2023, the state government as a measure to honour V.P. Raman renamed the Avvai Shanmugam Salai as V.P. Raman road, where his residence is. The former solicitor general was apparently an admirer of former chief minister C.N. Annadurai and was associated with the Dravidian movement.
