NEW DELHI: The Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that the plea filed by Chennai-based lawyer, Karuppiah Gandhi, seeking a direction to transfer the trials against incumbent State Ministers from TN to other States, should be dismissed.
Senior lawyers Dushyant Dave and Amit Anand, counsel for appearing for Tamil Nadu govt, urged the apex court's two-judge bench, led by Justice Surya Kant and Justice Dipankar Datta, to dismiss the plea filed by Karuppiah Gandhi be dismissed.
"This plea should be dismissed. He has not come with clean hands and there is complete falsehoods and suppression in the averments," Anand told the SC.
Dave told the apex court that all have been taken to their logical conclusion. There is no fundamental rights violation. This was not an appeal under article 32 of the Constitution.
The top court, however, said that it would give one last time to file rejoinder (and complete pleadings) in the case and adjourned the matter to July 16.
Dave on a lighter vein said that your lordships have shown extraordinary kindness on him. "We will see in the next date," the SC observed.
The Chennai-based lawyer, Karuppiah Gandhi, had moved the apex court and field a plea in the SC seeking a direction to transfer the trials against incumbent State Ministers from TN to other States.
The petition, filed by Gandhi, said that the current State prosecution does not inspire confidence when it comes to ensuring free and fair trials in the State itself.
Thereby the trials must be shifted to other state. Gandhi, in his petition filed in the apex court, named many TN ministers, including the former Chief Minister, O Paneerselvam, as respondents, in his PIL. Other leaders are - Dayanidhi Maran, K Ponmudy, Thangam Thennarassu, KKSSR Ramachandran, I Periyasamy, Valarmathi, K S Masthan, K N Nehru, Senthil Balaji and many others.
The Supreme Court in October had sought responses from the TN government and the State's Director General of Police (DGP) on the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) praying that trials against incumbent State Ministers be transferred from TN to other States.