Janata Party president Subramanian Swamy on Saturday wrote to Chief Minister Jayalalithaa asking her to dismiss leading industrialist AC Muthiah from the chairmanship of the State Planning Board on the ground that the MEA has terminated him from the post of Honorary Consul to the Kingdom of Belgium in Chennai.
Though no reason has been furnished by the MEA for terminating the services of Muthiah, Swamy claimed it was a fall out of the financial irregularities and misappropriation by him.
“The Tamil Nadu Government is in receipt of a letter No. DIII/460/CF-14/1986, dated 22.7.2013 from the MEA informing the TN Government that Muthiah who held the position as Honorary Consul of the Kingdom of Belgium in Chennai has been dismissed from that position because of financial defalcation and misappropriation which had come to the adverse notice of the Government of Belgium.
Subsequently our Ministry of External Affairs probed the matter and confirmed Muthiah’s fraud. Muthiah has brought the nation into disrepute and hence he should not hold any position in the Tamil Nadu Government,” Swamy said in his letter to the chief minister.
He also also asked Jayalalithaa to make amends and prosecute Muthiah for letting down the people of Tamil Nadu. “Otherwise I myself will be compelled to take up this matter in the form of a Public Interest litigation in the Courts,” he said.
Muthiah, the head of the Rs 5,000 crore SPIC group is a first cousin of union finance minister P Chidambaram.
He is the son of former BCCI chief M A Chidambaram and grandson of Sir Annamalai Chettiyar, the founder of the famous Annamalai University. Himself, a former chairman of the BCCI, Muthiah is chairman of Tamil Nadu Planning Board.