Furnish documents in Minister's wealth case: HC

[sidmis]

Furnish documents in Minister's wealth case: HC
As appeared in Chennaionline, Published on February 28, 2008

Chennai, Feb. 27 Madras High Court today directed the Judge of the Special Court at Salem to furnish all the documents relating to a wealth case against State Agriculture Minister Veerapandi S Arumugham, from which he had been discharged, to the petitioner.

Admitting a writ petition filed by a Salem-based Advocate J M Arumugham, Mr Justice M Jeyapaul said a third party was entitled to seek court documents.

The petitioner submitted that Mr Arumugham and five of his family members were charged under various sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act and the Indian Penal Code for acquiring and possessing property disproportionate to their known sources of income during 1996-2001, when he was a former Minister.

The case was purposefully dragged from 2004 to 2007 and after his DMK party came to power in 2006, he had filed a discharge petition in 2007 and the trial court discharged all of them from the case, he contended.

The petitioner submitted that under section three of the Right to Information Act, 2005, he had filed a petition before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, seeking copies of the documents. But the petition was dismissed by the trial court judge, he added, seeking a direction from the High Court to the trial court to furnish the required documents.

The Judge admitted his petition and directed the Salem Special Court to present FIR, charge sheet and other documents related to the case.