Chennai, Oct 26 (PTI) The Madras High Court on Monday dismissed a review petition filed by DMK leader and former minister K N Nehru challenging its earlier order, which directed the
DVAC to register a case based on information provided by the ED in a Rs 634 crore cash-for-job “scam”.
The first bench comprising Chief Justice S A Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan also dismissed the review petition filed by the State government as withdrawn.
The bench closed the contempt petition filed by the petitioner, AIADMK MP and advocate I S Inbadurai.
The matter pertains to allegations of cash-for-jobs when Nehru, a DMK strongman from Tiruchirappalli, headed the Municipal Administration and Water Supply department during the 2021-26 DMK rule in Tamil Nadu.
Dismissing the review petition filed by Nehru, the bench in its order said two things weigh with it here. First, the order was reserved on February 4, 2026 and pronounced only on February 20, 2026, and admittedly there was a gap of more than two weeks. If the review applicant, once notice reached him, wished to bring anything to attention of the Court, nothing stopped him from moving an application in that window of 16 days. No such attempt was made.
This, in substance, fortifies the submission of Advocate General that the review applicant sat by and watched the proceedings before complaining, the bench added.
The bench said second, all that the court directed was the registration of a case and an investigation, nothing more. The court did not, and at that stage could not, decide anyone’s guilt. The observations record the case of the Enforcement Directorate, not any conclusion of this Court on it. Whether that material holds up, and whether the review applicant or his relatives had any part in what was alleged, were questions for the investigation to answer, and thereafter for a criminal court to decide.
And this court never intended to settle those questions in a writ petition that asked only for a case to be registered. Succinctly put, a direction to register an FIR was not a finding against anyone. It only starts the process of investigation, and it was during that investigation, and at trial if matters go that far, that the review applicant will have every opportunity to place his version and test the case against him.
Being denied a hearing before that process even begins was not the kind of prejudice that calls for recalling an otherwise reasoned order. “We are not persuaded that the delay in serving notice on the review applicant amounts to a breach of natural justice to recall the order”, the bench added.
The bench said the direction here went to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), which was a party before throughout. The review applicant was not the addressee of any direction and he was, at best, a person named in material that the D had forwarded and that formed the basis for a direction to someone else.
The bench said a direction to register a case and investigate was, by its very character, a preliminary step. It settles nobody’s guilt, and it need not await the version of every person who might eventually come to be investigated. The review applicant will have his say, in full, once the investigation reaches him, the bench added.
The bench said in contempt petition, the complaint was that the order of this court dated February 20, 2026 had not been obeyed. With the review petition now withdrawn, and with Advocate General placing on record a clear assurance that the authority concerned shall carry the investigation forward based on the FIR registered, the very grievance behind the contempt petition stands
met.
“We see no purpose in keeping the contempt petition alive”, the bench added. PTI CORR SA
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