The Madras High Court is slated to take up for admission on Friday a public interest litigation petition filed by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) organising secretary R.S. Bharathi seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged malpractices in the Group I service examinations conducted by the Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission in 2015-16.
Third Division Bench of Justices R. Subbiah and R. Pongiappan will be hearing the case on Friday after the fourth Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha on Thursday ordered clubbing of the PIL petition along with a connected writ petition filed by transgender candidate Swapna in 2017, already pending before the Bench led by Justice Subbiah.
In an affidavit filed through Senior Counsel P. Wilson, the PIL petitioner insisted that the investigation regarding the Group I examinations must be necessarily transferred from the Central Crime Branch police to the CBI since the local police had let off all top level officials of the TNPSC and had investigated only regarding the involvement of lower rung officials.
The senior counsel contended that it was highly impossible for such a big scam involving theft of unused answer scripts to have happened without the active involvement of the then chairman, secretary as well as other top officials of TNPSC. He pointed out that the CCB itself had conceded that a scam did happen and that TNPSC employees were involved in it.
After hearing his preliminary arguments, the Bench led by Justice Sathyanarayanan directed the High Court Registry to list the PIL petition before the Bench led by Justice Subbiah after obtaining necessary orders from Chief Justice Amreshwar Pratap Sahi.
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