On Wednesday, Justice N Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court nullified a previous special court decision that had acquitted Tamil Nadu ministers KKSSR Ramachandran and Thangam Thennarasu in separate disproportionate assets (DA) cases. The High Court directed the special court to resume the trials, beginning with the formal framing of charges.
In his judgment, delivered in response to suo motu criminal revision cases, Justice Venkatesh ordered that both cases be restored to the special court and be conducted in accordance with legal procedures. He mandated that KKSSR Ramachandran appear before the special court on September 9, while Thangam Thennarasu is to appear on September 11.
The judge also dismissed discharge petitions filed by both ministers, emphasizing that the final closure reports submitted by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) in these cases should be treated as supplementary reports. This ruling effectively reopens the investigation into the allegations of disproportionate assets.
The cases against the ministers date back to their tenures in the previous Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government. In 2011, the DVAC registered a case against KKSSR Ramachandran, who was a minister from 2006 to 2011, along with his wife R Aadhilakshmi and his associate KSP Shanmugamoorthy. The agency alleged that the minister had amassed wealth far exceeding his known sources of income. The final report in this case was submitted to a special court in Madurai in 2012.
Similarly, Thangam Thennarasu, who served as the education minister from 2006 to 2010, and his wife Manimegalai were booked by the DVAC in 2012 on similar charges of accumulating assets disproportionate to their incomes during his tenure. For administrative reasons, both cases were later transferred to the Srivilliputhur special judge.
The High Court’s decision to reinstate the trials and its direction to treat the DVAC’s final reports as supplementary indicate a significant development in these long-pending cases, which will now proceed to a full trial as per the court’s orders.
