"Will Look Into Legality Of Final Closure Reports": Madras HC Fixes Date For Hearing Suo Moto Revision Against Discharge/Acquittal Of Ministers

The court has decided to hear the suo moto revisions against KKSSR Ramachandran, Thangam Thenarasu, O Panneerselvam and B Valarmathi together from 5th February to 9th February 2024. The case against Periyasamy will be taken up on February 12 and 13 and against Ponmudi will be taken up from February 19 to 22.

While fixing the dates for the hearing, Justice Anand Venkatesh, who has returned to the portfolio for handling cases against MPs and MLAs made it clear that the court will not be looking into the merits of the order discharging/acquitting the ministers, but will be focusing on the legality of the orders.

“This court is not looking into the order of discharge on merits but confined to the legality of filing final closure reports under 173(8) CrPC and the legality of a trial court accepting this report and acting on it as if it is superior to a report under 173(2) CrPC,” the court said.

The court added that it would see whether the trial court had committed a jurisdictional error while discharging the accused ministers under Section 239 CrPC.

Noting that another application had been moved in one of the suo moto revisions seeking to implead the Registrar General, the court remarked that the reply given by the Registrar General in already impleaded case can be relied on for other cases as well.

The court also added that it will hear the case against the retired Judicial officer as a separate case, when it would be taken up along with that of Ponmudi.

The court observed that in all the cases, there was a pattern of the prosecution conducting further investigation and filing a “final closure report” while the discharge petition filed by the accused was pending consideration. The court noted that in all the cases, the trial court had acted upon these final closure reports to discharge/acquit the convicts.

The court observed that there was a serious procedural lapse in accepting these final closure reports which had promoted the court to exercise its suo moto powers to examine if the orders suffered from manifest illegality.