The Madras High Court on Friday directed the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to “forthwith register a case” and begin an expedited investigation into allegations of a large-scale “cash-for-jobs” racket in recruitment to the Municipal Administration and Water Supply (MAWS) Department, after the Enforcement Directorate (ED) supplied what the court described as voluminous material pointing to a prima facie case.
A Bench of Chief Justice Manindra Mohan Shrivastava and Justice G Arul Murugan said the allegations concerned recruitment to 2,538 posts, including Assistant Engineers, Junior Engineers and Town Planning Officers, and involved claims that candidates were selected through illegal gratification “ranging from Rs.25 lakh to Rs.35 lakh per post”.
The court noted that the controversy did not originate from a routine complaint but from material seized during an unrelated ED investigation — a detail that has now become central to the legal battle over whether the state could continue to delay registration of a formal case.
In the order, the court recorded that the ED, while conducting a search in a bank fraud case at the residence of K N Ravichandran, director of a housing company and brother of DMK minister K N Nehru, came across a set of documents and digital records that, “prima facie, disclose the existence of a systematic and organised job racket in the recruitment process.”
The ED then shared the material with the state police under section 66(2) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), enclosing “voluminous records running into 232 pages”.
The court’s directive came in response to a Writ petition filed by I S Inbadurai, a Rajya Sabha member, seeking registration of an FIR “forthwith”, and a Public Interest Litigation filed by K Athinarayanan. The Bench dismissed Athinarayanan’s petition after holding that his bona fides were under a “serious cloud”, noting that he faced multiple criminal cases and that a PIL at his instance did not merit consideration.
But it proceeded to examine the merits of the Inbadurai petition, observing that the allegations were rooted in a statutory agency’s communication and not “merely confined to a bald allegation”. The order summarised the petitioners’ account that the alleged scam was conducted through a “Rs 10/- currency note-based identification method” used to identify beneficiaries and collect bribes.
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The Bench recorded the claim that more than 150 candidates were recruited illegally and that the alleged operation involved the minister’s brothers and their associates. It also noted that the state had not taken timely action on the information, even though it disclosed the commission of cognisable offences — a delay that became the crux of the petitions.
On behalf of the state, the Advocate General told the court that the ED letter from October 27, 2025, had been forwarded to the Vigilance Department for enquiry, and that the government had accorded permission under section 17A of the Prevention of Corruption Act on January 12, 2026. The Vigilance Department, the state said, had registered an enquiry on December 12, 2025.
The state also argued that the ED material had been collected during a search linked to a bank fraud predicate offence that was later quashed, and that the ED’s own ECIR in that bank fraud case had been quashed by a Division Bench; the ED had returned the seized materials in July 2025, the state said, contending that the subsequent October communication “may not hold good any more”.
The court rejected that core contention. Even if the bank fraud case and the ECIR were quashed, it said, “That has nothing to do with the incriminating materials that were seized in respect of the recruitment made to MAWS Department.”
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Preliminary inquiry vs FIR
A large portion of the order turned on first principles: when must police register an FIR, and when can they instead conduct a preliminary inquiry? Citing the Supreme Court’s Constitution Bench ruling in Lalita Kumari v. Government of UP, the Madras High Court underscored that a police officer should not refuse to register a case on the ground that he is not satisfied about the reasonableness or credibility of the information, because “reasonableness or credibility of the said information is not a condition precedent for the registration of a case”.
The court noted that while preliminary inquiry may be permissible in certain categories, including corruption cases, it must be time-bound: “It should not exceed 15 days generally and in exceptional cases… six weeks’ time is provided.”
It warned against using preliminary inquiry as a shield for indefinite delay once information discloses a cognisable offence.
The Bench also mentioned the practical stakes. The selected candidates had already joined and were in service for more than six months, it noted, and if the process was ultimately found rigged, the consequences could be wide.
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In language that directly addressed the state’s pace, the court said: “In the cases involving such complications and sensitive issues, the State ought to have acted diligently and should have registered a case without any delay… Any delay in registering and investigating the case may give room to destruction of material evidence.”
While stating it was “prima facie satisfied that the investigation could be entrusted to an independent specialised agency”, the Bench said it would, for now, direct the DVAC itself to act, since the state had already entrusted the matter to that department.
The DVAC “is directed to forthwith register a case on the information shared by the Enforcement Directorate on 27.10.2025… and conduct a detailed expeditious investigation into the matter and proceed further in accordance to law”, the order said.
