Chennai, Mar 28 (PTI) The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed as withdrawn, the Tamil Nadu government’s appeals against the order of a single judge, quashing a GO issued by the previous AIADMK regime relating to the alleged irregularities in the construction of a new Secretariat building here.
The government order (GO) had directed handing over the files and records of Justice Regupathy Commission of Inquiry, appointed to probe the alleged irregularities in the construction of the new secretariat complex during the 2006-11 DMK regime, to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC).
Taking on record the request of the state government to permit it to withdraw the appeals, a division bench comprising Justices R Suresh Kumar and K Kumaresh Babu dismissed the appeals as withdrawn.
The bench said coming to the right of the appellant State to withdraw these Intra Court Appeals, the contention of the impleading petitioner, former AIADMK MP J Jayavardhan, opposing the said request based upon the various decisions “in our view, cannot be sustained”. The judgments relied upon by them were the judgments which arise from cases relating to a criminal trial, the bench added.
The bench said in the present case, as rightly pointed out by the Advocate General, the same had not reached that stage. What the Single Judge by way of an interim order had made was that he had left it open to the State to take a decision after analysing the materials available before it. Even though a decision was taken earlier to direct the DVAC to conduct a detailed enquiry, the same was set aside in the impugned judgments.
The State had preferred these Intra Court Appeals against that. It now seeks to withdraw the same. When a person has instituted or initiated a proceedings before the Court, it was always open to him to withdraw or abandon his claim as has been held in the case of Anurag Mittal vs Shaily Mishra Mittal case, the bench added.
The bench said in such an event, the Court cannot insist upon a party to conduct the case, particularly, when a party wishes to abandon his claim without reserving any right.
“We are also conscious of the fact that the Government Order and the direction issued by the Government to conduct a detailed enquiry which they now seek to wriggle out, cannot take away the right of the impleading petitioner from seeking appropriate remedy in the manner known to law, if he is so advised, since his complaint has also been closed by the DVAC as evidenced from the report”, the bench added.
The bench said even though it has found that the impleading petitioner has a locus standi to be represented in these Intra Court Appeals in view of the withdrawal of these Intra Court Appeals, it would be a futile exercise to order the impleading petitions, hence the Application for impleading were closed as unnecessary, the bench added. PTI CORR SA
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