The Madras High court on August 7 reversed the discharge of Tamil Nadu ministers KKSSR Ramachandran and Thangam Thennarasu by lower courts in two different disproportionate assets cases. The high court ordered the trial court to conduct fresh trial expeditiously to take the case to a logical conclusion.
With Justice N. Anand Venkatesh allowing two suo motu criminal revision petitions, Thennarasu, Ramachandran and their family members will face trial before the special court designated for cases involving Members of Parliament and Legislative Assembly. The high court ordered the special court to frame charges and directed the ministers and all the other accused to appear before the trial court on September 9. The HC has also ordered that the accused furnish a bond with or without sureties as deemed fit by that court.
Finance Minister Thangam Thennarasu and his wife Manimegalai were discharged by the Principal District and Sessions Court in Srivilliputhur in December 2022 in a disproportionate assets case filed by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) in 2012, during the erstwhile AIADMK regime. The DVAC then accused the couple of amassing wealth when Thennarasu served as the School Education Minister between 2006 and 2011.
Revenue and Disaster Management Minister KKSSR Ramachandran and his wife Aadhilakshmi along with KSP Shanmuga Moorthy were acquitted by the Srivilliputhur Principal sessions court in July 2023 in a DA case filed by the DVAC during the AIADMK regime. The trio were accused of accumulating disproportionate assets to the tune of Rs 43 lakhs when Ramachandran was the Minister for Health and Backward Classes between 2006 and 2011 under the DMK government.
Justice Anand Venkatesh, in his order, invoked Section 397 of CrPC to revise the acquittals. Earlier in 2023, he had also taken suo motu revision of DA cases against minister K. Ponmudy and former chief minister O. Panneerselvam.
Though the Madras High Court had initiated suo motu petitions a year before, the order directing the ministers to face fresh trial has shaken the DMK camp. Thennarasu and Ramachandran are the two strongmen of the DMK from the Virudhunagar region. Thennarasu, a DMK veteran, is considered to be one of the confidants of Chief Minister M.K. Stalin. Ramachandran, who was part of the then MGR’s cabinet, moved to the DMK decades before and is one of the senior ministers from South Tamil Nadu.
Meanwhile, in yet another development, the high court dismissed a plea filed by Animal Husbandry and Fisheries Minister Anita Radhakrishnan, praying for quashing of the money laundering case registered by the ED in a DA case.
It may be also recalled that former minister Senthil Balaji is in judicial custody for more than 300 days in a cash for job scam. The PMLA court in Chennai on Thursday registered the charges against Balaji.
