The Election Commission on Wednesday informed the Madras High Court that it had received a fresh report from the Income Tax Department on October 18 regarding the April 2017 R.K. Nagar bypoll bribery issue, and a decision had therefore been taken to get a new FIR registered by the police.
The submission was made before Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and R. Hemalatha, who were seized of writ petitions seeking a CBI probe into the issue since an FIR registered by the city police in 2017, at the instance of Election Commission, had been quashed by a single judge of the High Court in March 2018, without the knowledge of the poll watchdog.
Wondering if the quashing of that FIR could be grounds to order a CBI probe, the judges had directed the Election Commission to disclose what other legal remedies it proposed to seek.
In response, the Election Commission continued to update the court about the decisions taken by it from time to time, with a request not to disclose them in public “in view of the sensitive nature of the issue”.
Such non-disclosure forced senior counsel P. Wilson, representing a petitioner N. Maruthu Ganesh of DMK [who was defeated in the bypoll], to file a memo last month insisting upon disclosure of all documents related to the issue. Following this, the judges had directed EC counsel Niranjan Rajagopal to obtain necessary instructions from the commission within a month.
Accordingly, Mr. Rajagopal on Wednesday submitted a letter written to him by EC Undersecretary Rajiv Ranjan on Monday. The letter stated that the commission had received a report from the Department of Revenue on October 18 and, on the basis of the report, the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of Tamil Nadu had been directed on October 21 to lodge a police complaint.
The CEO was specifically instructed to get an FIR registered against those suspected to have been involved in bribing voters, and indulging in electoral corrupt practices, following recovery of incriminating documents during searches conducted at the residence of Health Minister C. Vijayabaskar and other places in April 2017.
However, CEO Satyabrata Sahoo sought certain clarifications on October 25. Subsequently, the commission wrote to the Central Board of Direct Taxes seeking to know the current status of income tax assessment proceedings initiated against Mr. Vijayabaskar pursuant to the searches and also sent a reminder on December 5, but the information was still awaited, the letter read.
After the judges perused the letter, senior standing counsel for the Income Tax Department, A.P. Srinivas, told the court that the I-T department was expected to complete the assessment proceedings by December 31. In the meantime, the Health Minister had filed a writ petition before a single judge of the High Court insisting upon cross-examining witnesses, he said.
The Division Bench was also told that Justice Anita Sumanth was expected to hear the Minister’s writ petition on Thursday. After recording the submissions, the Bench adjourned further hearing on the cases seeking a CBI probe to January 23.
