Chennai: Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) today appealed to the Supreme Court to quash the 12 October Madras High Court order to initiate a CBI probe on the alleged corruption in award of contracts by Tamilnadu State Highways Department headed by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami.
The HC order came on a plea by the opposition DMK which alleged that the allotment of highway projects, funded by the World Bank, was made to select companies by violating the provisions of the Transparency of Tenders Act, 1998 with impunity. The court asked the CBI to submit a preliminary report within three months and also directed the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti corruption wing (DVAC) to share details of the case with the probe agency within a week.
The DVAC had on 9 October submitted a report in the HC that its preliminary enquiry has found that no cognisable offence has been made out against the CM. The DMK had initially moved the Madras HC seeking a direction to the DVAC to register a corruption case against EPS based on its complaint.
In its petition, the DMK said it had complained to the DVAC in June this year that multi-crore government highway contracts were given to Palaniswamys relatives but no probe was initiated. The petitioner noted that the Income Tax department had conducted raids on properties of contractors in July this year, including those belonging to Nagarajan Seyyadurai, the managing director of SPK and CO Expressway Pvt Ltd, who is allegedly linked to the Chief Minister.
Recently, Palaniswami denied the charges made by the DMK and said all rules were followed while allowing contracts.