Supreme Court Stays Revival Of Disproportionate Assets Case Against Ex-TN CM O Paneerselvam

The Supreme Court today (November 29) issued notice against the Madras High Court's order setting aside the discharge of O Panneerselvam, former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister and his family members in a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act over alleged disproporation assets. In the meanwhile, the Court has stayed the operation of the impugned order.

A bench of Justices Hrishkesh Roy and S.V.N. Bhatti briefly heard senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi, Mukul Rohagti, Siddharth Luthra and S. Nagamuthu appearing for various accused persons and passed the following order.

The order reads: "In the present matter concerned, we have heard the seniors counsels....appearing in the respective batch of petitions. The challenge is to the impugned order of learned single judge of the High Court judicature at Madras exercising powers of suo moto criminal revision, under Section 397 of the Code of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973. Following such an exercise, the Court has interfered with the withdrawal prosecution order hereunder the accused was discharged as far as on 3.12.2012. The learned judge however ordered for the restoration of special cases to the file of the concerned special court. In doing so, the Court directed that the final closure report should now be treated as supplementary report under 173(8) of the CrPC. Thereafter, the Court directed the Special Court to frame charges with the observation that prima facie materials are available. Following the above orders, the accused were directed to immediately appear before the special court and the learned judge, who directed them to proceed on day to day basis for an early conclusion of trial by 30.6.2025.

The learned counsel for the petitioners would refer to the provisions of 227 of the CrPC to argue that on the basis of the material and documents, the arguments of the accused and prosecution, the special judge is required to consider whether there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the accused. If merit is not found, the judge concerned should discharge the accused. But the impugned judgment, the learned judge has expropriated the powers conferred under by the CrPC and decided that the special judge should frame the charges. The Counsel would rely on Vinay Tyagi vs Irshad Ali @ Deepak & Ors (2012). Issue notice. In the meantime, the impugned judgment shall stay."

Background

Justice Anand Venkatesh exercised suo moto criminal revision against the order passed by Chief Judicial Magistrate/Special Judge, Sivagangai discharging Paneerselvam and his family in a disproportionate asset case.

The single judge criticized the manner in which the entire proceedings were conducted and made scathing remarks against the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC). The Court observed that a "well-orchestrated modus operandi" was used in the case, whereby the DVAC, after the change of the government, filed a supplementary chargesheet, wiping out the first chargesheet, under the guise of further investigation and the prosecution withdrew the case citing the second chargesheet which exonerated the accused.

Notably, the order for withdrawal of prosecution was passed a decade ago, on December 3, 2012.

The case against Paneerselvam was that while serving as the Revenue Minister and the Chief Minister of the state between 19.05.2001 to 21.09.2001 and 02.03.2002 to 12.05.2006, he had accumulated property and pecuniary resources disproportionate to his sources of income.

Case Details: O PANNEERSELVAM v STATE REP BY DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE AND ORS.., SLP(Crl) No. 16221/2024 & B LATHA MAHESHWARI @ LATHA BALAMURUGAN v STATE AND ORS., SLP(Crl) No. 16242/2024 & R SASIKALAVATHY v STATE REP BY DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE AND ORS.., SLP(Crl) No. 16342/2024 and SLP(Crl) No. P RAVINDHRANATH v. STATE REP BY DEPUTY SUPERINTENDENT OF POLICE AND ORS. 16281/2024