UIDAI, prison SP to produce thumb impression of Jayalalithaa

Chennai: The Madras high court has directed the superintendent of Central Prison, Parappana Agrahara, Bengaluru, and the chairman of Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to produce the thumb impression of former chief minister late J.Jayalalithaa, if any available with them, before the court on December 8.

Originally, the defeated DMK candidate Dr.P.Saravanan filed an election petition, challenging the election of AIADMK candidate A.K.Bose in the Tirupparangundram  byelection held in November last year. Contending that the left thumb impression of Jayalalithaa had been obtained in Form A and B without her consent and knowledge while she was unconscious in the Apollo hospital and with the connivance of the doctors who had attended on her, Saravanan filed the present affidavit. He further contended that the decision of the election commission to accept the nomination papers of Bose had materially affected his election prospects.

HC judge recuses himself from Sekhar Reddy case:

Justice M.S. Ramesh of Madras high court has recused himself from hearing the petition filed by J. Sekhar Reddy, a mining baron, seeking to quash criminal proceedings against him before the principal sessions judge in Chennai. In December 2016, Rs 34 crore in new denomination notes of Rs 2,000 and gold worth several crores were seized from Reddy. The judge directed the registry to place the matter before the Chief Justice for placing it before some other judge.

The case had been registered by Enforcement Directorate for offences under various provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in March, 2017.
In his petition, Reddy submitted that ED without following any due procedure of law and relying on investigations conducted by other agencies had filed the case on the file of PSJ under the PML Act.

The case was vitiated, illegal and void. The entire basis of the complaint filed by ED was the FIR registered by the CBI based on the information by the income tax department. CBI was yet to either identify the involvement of the alleged bank officials or prima facie make out an offence or file a chargesheet for the allegations of conversion of the old currency notes into the new denomination notes. ED has reproduced almost verbatim the contents of the FIR registered by the CBI in the complaint without any independent confirmation or disclosing reasons to believe based on materials on record that he has committed an offence under the PML Act. He had not indulged in conversion of old currency notes into new currency notes, even otherwise, it was not an offence declared under any law, he added.