Jayalalithaa’s photos in government ads challenged

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar, before whom the PIL filed by social activist Traffic Ramaswamy came up for hearing on Monday, directed the authorities to file counter affidavit within three weeks and rejoinder if any, within two weeks thereafter. The case has been posted to August 28 for further hearing. 

Ramaswamy had contended that the present government has been issuing advertisements pertaining to government schemes and other achievements in daily newspapers with the photograph of late Jayalalithaa contrary to norms.

He said the AIADMK party members are free to use her photos and publish the same using their own funds. Similarly, the government officers also can use her photo out of their own personal funds since she was the chief minister. But, they cannot do it by misusing public funds. 

Noting that the Supreme Court in its orders on the disproportionate wealth case has clearly stated that the former chief minister Jayalalaithaa was an accused, he said none of the states in the country was using the photograph of an accused for government schemes and achievements by spending public money. 

Ramaswamy also submitted that the government officials very aware of that they cannot afford to use the image of an accused is government advertisements using public money, but they were being forced to do it by their political bosses. He said such a process ought to be nipped in the bid as it would offer successive governments similar leverage in wasting public money to eulogise their leaders.

The Madras High Court on Monday coming down heavily on a petitioner, who sought for a direction to suspend the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly citing the activities of Chief Minister and Assembly Speaker and a direction to the offices of the President and Governor to take necessary action and enquire into the corruption charges against the Chief Minister and his group of ministers dismissed the plea rapping him for lack of locus standi.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Indira Banerjee and Justice M Sundar on referring to the petitioner Traffic Ramaswamy’s contention that the Ministers and MLAs arriving to the state assembly with an illuminated photograph of a convicted senior politician (late former Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa) in their vehicles dashboard was by itself a serious offence, said “The petitioner has not adverted to any provision of law, which prevents an MLA from putting up an illuminated photograph of a leader. It is not for this court to decide whether illuminated photograph of a person convicted by a court of law should be put up or not.” 

As regards the petitioner’s allegation that bribe ranging from Rs 2 crore to 6 crore was offered to MLAs when they boarded the bus to go to Koovathur resort by Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and his group, the bench said, “The source of the information was not revealed by the petitioner. Petitioner was not an MLA and he was obviously not on the bus.” 

Also, on referring to another allegation that several bills were passed in the assembly without hearing the opinion of other elected members, the bench said, “It was nobody’s case that bills were not passed by the majority of the members.” The bench while dismissing the plea also held that the alleged corruption charges against the Chief Minister were yet again devoid of material particulars and the source of such information was unclear.

A petition seeking implementation of CBSE syllabus across all the schools in the state had been filed at Madurai Bench of Madras High Court. When the petition was heard on Monday, the Court sent notice to the Secretary and Director of School Education Department. Petitioner Babu Abdulla from Ramanathapuram, in his petition, had stated that recently NEET results were released and the students from Tamil Nadu fared poorly. Though students scored well in the board exams they could not shine in the NEET exams. The main reason for the failure in NEET is the state board syllabus, which is implemented in the government and private schools here. When the reason for the performance of students of other states was analysed, it was found that their success in NEET was mainly due to CBSE syllabus.  The petitioner also quoted Kerala as an example. The case was posted to July 24.

A petition seeking action on women protesters of TASMAC shops has been dismissed by the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Monday. The state government informed the court that strict action had been taken on the protesters, who damaged public properties.  Petitioner KK Ramesh, a lawyer from Madurai stated that the shifting process of TASMAC outlets had been widely opposed by the people, especially women. In many of the protests the TASMAC shops were vandalised.  By vandalising the shops, they had been destroying public properties, he contented.  The PP informed the court that strict action had been taken on the protesters. Based on it, the court dismissed the plea.