Tamil Nadu moves SC

NEW DELHI, Feb 18 (PTI) — Tamil Nadu today filed a writ petition in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of the Centre’s recent notification on the transfer of cases against AIADMK leader Jayalalitha in the Supreme Court, saying it had not been approved by the Madras High Court.

The writ petition, to be listed for hearing on February 22, said the Centre’s February 5 notification "has not received the concurrence nor has been passed in consultation with the Madras High Court".

The Centre’s notification had sought to negate the April 30, 1997, order of the state government appointing three special judges to exclusively try 46 corruption cases against former Chief Minister Jayalalitha, some of her erstwhile cabinet colleagues and certain bureaucrats as it transferred the cases from the special judges to the sessions courts.

Ms Jayalalitha had challenged the state government’s April 30 order appointing special judges to try her cases but the high court had dismissed her petition. The Supreme Court is at present dealing with her appeal against the high court order.

Tamil Nadu stated in the petition that the high court of Madras had upheld the state government’s April 30 order by its judgement of November 10.

It further said the Prevention of Corruption Act "does not authorise the Centre to override or substitute the orders passed by the state government."

The Centre had informed the Supreme Court that the state government did not have powers under the Act to transfer cases to special judges as the Centre alone had the power under Section 4(2) of the Act.

However, the Tamil Nadu Government in its petition said the Act "does not enable the central government, when a case has already been lawfully and validly allocated under Section 3(1) of the Act to special judges, to countermand that order and to entrust the trial of that case to some other special judges."

An indication about the filing of the writ petition challenging the validity of the central notification came on February 15 during the hearing of Ms Jayalalitha’s special leave petition.

Appearing for the state government, Mr Fali S Nariman and Mr Shanti Bhushan emphatically told the court that the "Centre has issued the notification without consulting the high court and we wish to challenge it in the Supreme Court within a week."

The Bench had observed that in view of the February 5 notification by the Centre transferring the cases to the sessions courts, "the petition by Jayalalitha becomes infructuous".

However, counsel for Tamil Nadu contended that they wished to challenge the notification which did not have the consent of the Madras High Court and was not applicable to the cases of Jayalalitha which were already pending before the three special judges.