Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee has named Justice M. Nirmal Kumar as the third judge to decide a disproportionate assets case against former Minister for Milk and Dairy Development K.T. Rajenthra Bhalaji. The matter has been referred to the third judge following a split verdict delivered by a Division Bench of the court in March.
When the case was listed before Justice Kumar on Friday, senior counsel M. Ajmal Khan, representing the former Minister, apprised the judge about the background of the case and the series of orders passed by the Division Bench which was handling the case previously. After hearing him, the judge decided to commence hearing the arguments in detail from July 22.
On March 4, Justices M. Sathyanarayanan (since retired) and R. Hemalatha had differed with each other on the issue of ordering a full-fledged investigation into the charge of the former Minister having amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income. Justice Sathyanarayanan had eschewed a preliminary inquiry report submitted by Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption in favour of the then Minister and ordered registration of a First Information Report (FIR).
However, Justice Hemalatha took a contrary stand and ordered that there was no need to register a FIR and conduct an investigation when the State government had already accepted DVAC's preliminary report and dropped all further proceedings in the matter.
