City Public Prosecutor drops ‘letter bomb’ on law officers’ postings

Now, adding more credence to this is the allegation raised by the City Public Prosecutor ML Jegan that the state Additional Advocate General and AIADMK’s Advocates’ wing, state president, VS Sethuraman demanded Rs 25 lakh to enable him to retain the position he holds. 

Jegan’s allegation, which has created ripples in the legal circles, has brought into sharp focus the utter politicisation that has engulfed the system when it comes to appointment of law officers to the various courts in the state. 

In a letter to the state Law Minister CVe Shanmugam, the aggrieved city public prosecutor on realising that efforts are on to replace him, has come out threadbare on how his political affiliation has been ignored. 

The letter claims that he has been loyal to the AIADMK for the past 30 years including 20 years as legal wing secretary, North Chennai. Noting that based on his loyalty and for being part of the battery of the AIADMK lawyers, who had handled cases against Jayalalithaa for the past 12 years, he was made the City Public Prosecutor in 2011. Since then, he has filed as many as 150 defamation suits against other political parties and media personnel for criticising Jayalalithaa. But ignoring all this, he has been asked to part with Rs 25 lakh to retain his position.

Condemning the AIADMK legal wing secretary for going against the norm, Jegan told reporters that it is common practice that in all the District Sessions courts the AIADMK Party’s respective district legal wing secretary and senior office-bearers will be appointed as the public prosecutors. But thwarting the convention, Sethuraman, who has failed to appear in any of the case for many years, was now appointing outsiders as prosecutors after receiving money from them. 

Interestingly, the allegation comes at a time when the state despite several directions from the High Court to frame proper rules in the selection of law officers had merely brought about a system wherein a selection committee with the Advocate General as chairperson and secretaries from Public, Home and Law department s as members would appoint law officers for the HC.