Madras High Court directs Vigilance to inquire cheating case

Chennai, Oct 12 (UNI) The Madras High Court has directed the Vigilance Cell attached to the Court to investigate a complaint against a lady judge of a Fast Track Court (FTC) for allegedly cheating to the tune of several crores of rupees.

While admitting a writ petition, Mr Justice S Tamilvanan directed the Vigilance Cell Director to file the investigation report within a month.

According to the complainant-petitioner, M Mohamed Aslam of Kilpauk, one of the affected parties, SIPCOT had acquired over 600 acres of land, belonging to about 1,000 families at Keelavalur, near Sriperumbudur in 1996.

As the compensation offered was meagre, they filed Land Acquisition Original Petitions (LAOPs) before Fast Track Court-IV, presided over by Bhagyarathi Rangarajan, in 2002.

The land acquisition authority, which moved the Madras High court, was directed to deposit 40 per cent of the amount claimed with the FTC court registry and permitted the petitioners there into withdraw the same.

However, the FTC judge has allegedly exercised every indulgence and preferential treatment to a particular advocate, Arun Subramaniam, and his son Vijay Anand, who alone represented in all the cases, and the judge considered only their representations.

The Registry of FTC had allegedly issued cheques in the name of the advocate, instead of in the names of the affected parties.

On the other hand, the advocate opened an account by forging the signatures of the claimants. He never disclosed the cheque amounts, received on different dates, from the Registry.

The compensation amount of about 20 claimants, who died in the meantime, was also taken by the advocate, the complaint said.

A perusal of the records available with the FTC would prove and give an irresistible conclusion that Bhagyarathi Rangarajan was in hand-in-glove with Arun Subramanian and they were doing every thing with impunity and misusing the process of law for their personal gains under the shadow of discretionary powers, the complaint said.

The Vigilance Cell started enquiry on October nine. However, FTC-IV Judge Bhagyarathi Rangarajan was retired on September 30.

UNI XR DS SY PM1356