Centre8217;s notification without authority, says special judge

Passing orders on a petition filed by former AIADMK Minister K A Sengottaiyan seeking a stay on the proceedings of the erstwhile Jeeva Transport Corporation scam, the judge said the notification is not valid in law and so the petitioner questioning the jurisdiction of this court is not maintainable. Only the High Court can order transfer of cases from one court to another and not the Centre. Hence the petition has to be rejected quot;in totoquot; in full, he said and called for examination of witnesses.

The judge said if there was any doubt about the validity of the notification there was no harm in referring the same to the High Court as suggested by the petitioner. But in this case the Central Government had issued the notification without any authority. He pointed out that the State Government had only constituted the special courts for a quot;group of casesquot; investigated by the police agencies viz, CBI-CID and DVAC situated in different sessions, divisions or areas.

A plain reading of Section 4 2 of the Prevention of Corruption Act makes it clear that wherever more than one special judge has been appointed for an quot;area or areasquot; the Central Government may by notification specify by whom it should be tried. The word may8217; assumes significance in this context. Further, the Section does not say anything about quot;groupingquot; of cases, he observed. The division bench of the Madras High Court had also stated that it is a case of grouping of cases only and not appointment of special judge for area.

He recalled that in July 1995, two special courts for the city of Madras were constituted to try cases investigated by the CBI by a notification issued by the State Government. The Central Government entrusted the matter of constitution of the courts to the State Government. Furthermore, the Centre agreed to reimburse the expenditure in full for setting up the two courts. Whereas the present notification is silent about reimbursement of expenditure incurred for the three courts and so it goes to show that the February 5 notification has been issued hurriedly. The special courts have been constituted by the State Government in consultation with the High Court. That being the case it is not acceptable that the Central Government can step in and say that the cases should be tried by some other judge.

If the framers of the Prevention of Corruption Act thought it necessary to empower the Central Government with vast powers they would have specifically mentioned in the Act itself that their notification would have superceding effect over the State Government8217;s notification. This also reinforces the argument that the Central Government cannot step in on the cases constituted for trial of a group of cases by special judge, he said.