Notice to RBI on note exchange deadline

In a suo moto PIL filed by the High Court by The Registrar (Judicial), he had claimed that the High Court and other subordinate courts coming under the High Court had either seized the amount or collected the amount as fines in various cases and the cash is preserved by the courts. According to seven district courts coming under the High Court, cash to the tune of more than Rs.2 crores is with the courts. The amount also includes a large number of the demonetised Rs.500 and Rs. 1,000 notes. Apart from that repayment to the parties would take several years as they would be paid back only after the end of the cases. But the recent announcement of the government had set the deadline to exchange the old Rs.500 and Rs.1,000 notes by either December 31 or March 31, at the maximum. As the deadline could not be met, the RBI should either extend the deadline for courts or should exempt the courts from exchanging the old notes. After the argument the Court had issued notice to the RBI and adjourned the case to November 22.

Judicial Magistrate-I at Tirunelveli has directed the police to file case against seven officials attached to the Tirunelveli Corporation on charges of corruption.

Lawyer Bramma, in his petition, had claimed that in the recent RTI reply given by the Corporation it was said that Rs.1.49 crores had been spent to maintain and repair defunct ground pumps from 2010 to July 2016 in various parts of Corporation. It was also mentioned that 1,711 pumps are present in three areas of Corporation Thachanallur, Palayamkottai and Melapalayam. But the total number of ground pumps had been exaggerated. They were replaced by overhead tanks five years before and officials claiming that such a huge cost was involved in repairing the ground pipes was not true. Many of the ground pipes are defunct today claimed Bramma. 

Bramma argued that initially he had submitted a complaint to the Tirunelveli Crime Branch Inspector against seven Corporation officials including the Corporation Engineer, the Assistant Commissioner (Accounts) and Assistant Executive Engineers of four zones but no investigation was carried out. He had then submitted a complaint to the Tirunelveli City Commissioner, but in vain. Hence, he had approached the Court to seek remedy. Following the argument of Bramma, the Court had directed the police to consider the complaint and to file case against seven Corporation officials who had indulged in corruption.