New Secretariat building: GO moving probe to DVAC quashed

Allowing the writ petitions filed by DMK president MK Stalin and Treasurer Durai Murugan, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana said “When the mission of the Commission is incomplete and there is no report based on which the government can proceed further, the impugned GO dated September 24, 2018, was issued without jurisdiction and the same cannot be sustained and it is liable to be quashed.”

“In view of the quashing of the GO, the consequential letter dated September 29, 2016 transferring the case to DVAC also cannot be sustained,” the Judge added.

Based on the earlier pleas moved by both the petitioners and former Chief Minister late M Karunanidhi, the Inquiry Commission could not take off owing to interim stays granted in 2014 and 2015. 

Thereafter, after a passage of over three years, when the above writ petitions surfaced, this court expressing anguish over such Commissions failing to serve any purpose, directed the State on August 3, 2018 to suspend the Commission. It also directed the State to scrutinise the said report and if prima facie case is found, institute criminal prosecution against those involved.

Based on this, through a GO and a consequential letter, the government transferred the probe to the DVAC, thus leading to the present challenge by Stalin and Durai Murugan.

However, the Judge, on holding that the State without realising that the Commission had not even filed a report based on the materials collected, said “Though the Chief Secretary had ample time, the GO was passed in a hasty manner and the consequential letter was issued according permission to the DVAC to conduct detailed enquiry.”

“A reading of the impugned GO in its entirety would go to show that the government has not even cared to receive the files from the Commission, much less, to read and make out a prima facie case for referring the matter to DVAC. Since no subjective satisfaction of the government is arrived at before handing over the papers to the DVAC, the GO itself is passed in violation of the interim order passed by this court,” added the Judge.

Stalin and Durai Murugan had held the offices of Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Public Works when the new secretariat building was constructed. But after the AIADMK came to power in 2011, the then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa had converted the new building into a government hospital and constituted an Inquiry Commission to look into the alleged irregularities in the construction.