Reghupathi quits panel probing Omandurar building case

In a 8-page letter written to the Chief Secretary, Justice Reghupathi, on citing the Madras High Court order dated August 3, 2018, which directed the state to issue orders within a week suspending the commission, said, “In view of the above time-oriented direction, although, all along, I strove my level-best to accomplish the task within the shortest possible time and my honest endeavors could not fructify due to the list pending from 2014 to 2018, probity demands that I should demit the office assigned.”

Observing that the order by Justice SM Subramaniam suspending the commission was bereft of any basis or documentary evidence or even logic, the retired judge in his letter said, “Before blindly blaming the Commission for the alleged delay, if the matter had been deliberated upon with minimum required fixity, it would have been easily concluded that the delay was actually not because of any listlessness on the part of the Commission, rather, emphatically, it was due to the administrative lethargy of the Registry of the Madras High Court in not listing the vacate stay petitions for a period of three long years.”

“In this matter, ironically, more than three-year time was not taken by the High Court for disposal but for mere listing of the vacate stay petitions. Such accusation is not an exaggeration, but it is the only fact, although a hard pill to swallow,” he added.

The Justice Reghupathi Commission since its inception had spent Rs 4.11 crore of which Rs 2 crore was spent after the Madras High Court had stayed its functioning in March 2015.