From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday set aside the Madras High Court order and restored the criminal complaint filed against V. Senthil Balaji – the electricity minister in the ruling DMK government in an old recruitment scam.
The bench of Justices S. Abdul Nazeer and V. Ramasubramanian allowed an appeal challenging the High Court order quashing the proceedings against Balaji relating to the alleged recruitment scam while he was the Transport Minister in the AIADMK government between 2011 and 2015.
“The impugned order of the High Court is wholly unsustainable. Therefore, the appeals are allowed and the impugned order of the High Court is set aside. The criminal complaint is restored to file”, the court said in its judgment.
Speaking for the bench, Justice Ramasubramanian said: “It is needless to point out that corruption by a public servant is an offence against the State and the society at large. The Court cannot deal with cases involving abuse of official position and adoption of corrupt practices, like suits for specific performance, where the refund of the money paid may also satisfy the agreement holder. Therefore, we hold that the High Court was completely in error in quashing the criminal complaint.”
The order of the top court came on the petitions challenging the High Court order by which the proceedings against Balaji and others were quashed on the grounds that the alleged victims of recruitment scam had arrived at a settlement and had been repaid the money owed and wanted the case to be quashed.
The top court in its verdict said that it was informed that the proceedings in respect of two cases have also been stayed by the High Court. “We do not know how the High Court could have stayed prosecution of persons under the Prevention of Corruption Act, especially in matters of this nature.”
“As a matter of fact, the State ought to have undertaken a comprehensive investigation into the entire scam, without allowing the accused to fish out one case as if it was a private money dispute,”, the top court said, taking a dim view of the High Court order.
The case before the High Court was regarding a complaint filed in 2018 by a person working as a technical staff in the Metro Transport Corporation, accusing the then Transport Minister and other persons of taking bribes from the job aspirants on the false promise of appointment to the Metro Transport Corporation (MTC) on various posts.
