Judiciary in Tamil Nadu experienced a jolt with the Madras High Court suspending a judicial magistrate from service on Thursday, hardly 48 hours after he acquitted two granite companies of all charges of illegal mining and ordering “criminal prosecution” against an honest and young IAS officer for initiating legal actions against the companies.
On Thursday, the Madras High Court had sacked from service an additional district judge for granting bail in an "unusual manner" to a doctor arrested for his involvement in kidney racket in the State.
KV Mahendra Boopathy, judicial magistrate, Melur in Madurai district had acquitted PRP granites and another company of all charges of illegal granite mining levelled against them by Anshul Mishra, former district collector. Mishra’s complaint was in continuation of the report submitted to the Government by his predecessor U Sahayam who found that the State Government suffered losses to the tune of `16, 338 crore due to illegal mining.
Mishra too was transferred to an innocuous post within days of filing the complaint. On Tuesday, Bopathy acquitted PRP Granites owned by mining don P R Palanisamy of all charges and ordered criminal prosecution against Anshul Mishra "for making false statements on oath". Meanwhile, P N Prakash, a judge of the Madras High Court, 'smelled a rat' in the way Boopathy was handling the granite mining case and called for either contempt proceedings or disciplinary action against the latter.
Thursday saw two senior district judges, A M Basheer Ahmed and P Saravanan making a surprise visit to Boopathy's court. They also held discussions with all senior Government officials in the district. By Friday noon, Sanjay Kishan Kaul, the Chief Justice of Madras High Court (CJ), after carefully studying the report submitted by the senior judges ordered the suspension Boopathy. The CJ has appointed another judge in place of Boopathy.
R Anburaj, additional district judge, Dharmapuri, was on Thursday sacked from service by a full Bench led by Justice Kaul of the Madras High Court on charges of impropriety and irregularities in granting bail to a doctor arrested for his involvement in kidney trade.
Dr V M Ganehsan, a nephrologist based in Salem had been arrested by the Dharmapuri Police in June 2013 on charges of cheating, forgery and criminal intimidation. Ganeshan's lawyer had filed a bail application in the Dharmapuri district court on June 21, 2013. S Vanangamudy, principal district judge, posted the case for hearing for June 25, 2013 and proceeded on leave for two days.
Anburaj, the additional district judge, who was holding the charge of the principal district judge took up the matter for hearing on June 24, 2013 itself and granted bail to the accused. Following allegations of irregularities in the granting of the bail, the Madras High Court's Registrar (Vigilance) held a probe which revealed that Anburaj granted the bail by stating that the Public Prosecutor had dropped the contention. But the PP had denied this in his statement. The Principal District Judge who returned from leave ruled that the bail was not legally sustainable and hence dismissed the bail plea.
The two incidents in quick succession come about within weeks of C S Karnan, a judge in the Madras High Court, staying the Chief Justice of India's (CJI) order transferring him to the Calcutta High Court. The Apex court had then issued an order restraining Karnan from doing any judicial work. The issue was sorted out following Karnan calling on the Chief Justice of India and tendering apologies for his "erroneous action" and explaining it as a fall-out of mental frustration.