Plea to appoint team to probe illegalities in Aavin tenders

A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice N Seshasayee before whom the plea came up for hearing on Monday adjourned the matter by three weeks after granting permission to the petitioner to back his allegations with material evidence.

The bench made it clear that the plea was devoid of material evidence and that the court can’t entertain allegations merely based on newspaper reports.

Advocate D Saikumaran appearing for Tamil Nadu Makkal Urimai Amiappu submitted that just three years ago, Aavin was functioning profitable with more than Rs180 crore of liquid cash. But since then there has been several scams including the one that surfaced in 2014 wherein a loss of Rs 23 lakh per day was detected. However, those arrested were acquitted making one wonder as to who those behind the scam were causing Aavin to suffer a loss of over Rs 100 crore.

Further, noting that the Tamil Nadu Cooperative Milk Producers Federation Ltd has resorted to hiring blacklisted transporters owing to their political influence paving way for another scam, the plea submitted that a query through the Right to Information Act has revealed that Aavin sells around 3.6 lakh litres of milk per day to private players at a very less rate while at the same time the price of milk sold to consumers was increased arbitrarily by Rs 6 per litre.

The misuse of resources like selling 3.6 lakh litres of milk per day without calling for any tender to private dairies and transporters has led to Aavin facing loss and the same has been heaped on the public by the price increase, the plea said. Based on this, it sought for the appointment of a committee by a retired High Court judge to foresee the activities of the federation relating to signing of contracts for purchasing and selling milk, calling for tender for transportation of milk and reopen cases of milk scam involving crores that has been closed.