Unicaus NEWS
Justice N. Anand Venkatesh directed the Special Court for Prevention of Corruption Act instances to submit the report by August 22, 2025. He additionally directed S. Vimala, serving because the Superintendent of Police within the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), to file an affidavit explaining the substantial delay in acquiring sanction to prosecute the general public servants listed as accused within the case.
The instructions have been issued on a second contempt of courtroom petition filed by anti-corruption organisation Arappor Iyakkam, represented by its managing trustee Jayaram Venkatesan, towards the Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. The current contempt plea had been filed for non-compliance of an order handed by the courtroom on April 5, 2024, within the first contempt of courtroom petition filed towards her predecessor.
Explaining the historical past of the case, the petitioner’s counsel V. Suresh and D. Nagasaila mentioned, his consumer had lodged a grievance with the DVAC manner again in 2018 relating to unlawful award of company contracts to those that shared shut ties with the then Minister, thereby ensuing within the unjust enrichment of public officers and diversion of the cash earned into choose firms and companies.
When there was no response, Arappor Iyakkam filed a public curiosity litigation petition looking for a path to register a First Information Report and represent a particular investigation staff. The High Court on July 19, 2021, ordered that “the State ought to spare no effort in attending to the underside of the matter and proceed towards these discovered to be accountable for the irregularities.”
Subsequently, a FIR was registered towards Mr. Velmunani and 16 others on August 9, 2021. However, one other Division Bench of the High Court on November 30, 2022, quashed the FIR with respect to Mr. Velumani alone, for need of prima facie supplies, however granted liberty to the DVAC to incorporate his title too within the chargesheet if it was in a position to collect any contemporary supplies in the course of the course of investigation.
In 2023, six personal companies approached the High Court to quash the FIR with respect to them too. On August 2, 2023, Justice Venkatesh refused to quash the FIR and requested the businesses to attend and see whether or not their names determine within the last report (chargesheet). He additionally directed the DVAC to finish the investigation and file the ultimate report inside six weeks after acquiring sanction to prosecute the general public servants.
It was complaining about disobedience of this order, Arappor Iyakkam had filed its first contempt plea in 2024 towards the then DVAC SP A. Myilvaganan. Justice Venkatesh closed the plea on April 5, 2024, after recording the submission of DVAC that it had filed two chargesheets earlier than the particular courtroom on March 1, 2024. Then, he directed the particular courtroom to behave upon these chargesheets inside two weeks.
Alleging disobedience of this order, the complainant had filed the current contempt plea towards incumbent SP Ms. Vimala who instructed Justice Venkatesh that the chargesheets have been returned by the particular courtroom on a number of occassions for rectification of defects. She mentioned, nearly all of the defects identified by the courtroom have been rectified and the chargesheets have been lastly resubmitted earlier than the courtroom on July 12, 2025.
Ms. Vimala mentioned, the case was associated to a lack of ₹98.25 crore brought on to the Greater Chennai and Coimbatore Municipal Corporations. Hence, the DVAC had filed the primary chargesheet towards 58 accused individuals together with over one lakh pages of tender associated paperwork. The second chargesheet was filed towards 40 accused individuals together with over 50,000 pages of tender associated paperwork.
The particular courtroom returned the chargesheets on August 16, 2024 with an commentary that a number of paperwork weren’t crammed in OCR format, had boring impressions and have been in a torn situation. The DVAC rectified the defects and resubmitted the chargesheets on November 11, 2024. However, the particular courtroom returned them once more on February 14, 2025 for submission of extra supporting supplies.
The particular courtroom insisted on submitting the Government Orders associated to the appointing authority of the general public servants who had been listed because the accused, the age proof of the accused, their images, e-mail IDs, contact numbers, and so forth. The chargesheets have been lastly resubmitted on July 12, 2025, together with all paperwork, besides the GO, as sought by the particular courtroom, Ms. Vimala mentioned.
Stating she had no deliberate intention to disobey courtroom orders, the SP urged the courtroom purge her from the contempt proceedings. However, Justice Venkatesh directed her to elucidate the lengthy delay in acquiring sanction to prosecute the general public servants and in addition known as for a report from the particular courtroom for not having taken the chargesheets on file inside two weeks as ordered by the High Court on April 5, 2024.
