AIADMK goverment came under Madras HC attack many times: Karunanidhi

Chennai: As the election campaign picked up heat and high decibels, DMK president M. Karunanidhi on Saturday alleged that the Madras high court had pulled up the AIADMK government in several cases, which only showed that the state administration had scant respect for judicial orders.

However, in a couple of such cases listed out by the DMK chief in his statement here, the concerned judges had not passed the strictures as claimed by him—not in the written order to be sure. One such case pertained to the public interest petition filed by retired teacher S T Manonmani complaining about the poor maintenance of the Anna Centenary Library built by the DMK regime at Kotturpuram in the city. Built at a cost of about '179 crore to match international standards, the library was neglected by the successor AIADMK government which even tried to convert the building to house a children’s hospital and a marriage hall only to give up the plan under public protest.

The Jayalalithaa administration had wanted to dump the library only because it was built by him, Karunanidhi alleged in his statement. And even after Manonmani’s petition pleading for its proper upkeep, the library was not properly maintained and its stock of books not updated. The high court had to appoint a
two-member commission to visit the library and report on its status.

The commission filed its third report on April 13 stating that there were still
some areas crying for attention. Responding, additional advocate general P H Arvindh Pandian promised the court that all the deficiencies would be rectified by June 30 this year. Accepting this commitment, the Bench headed by Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul directed the government to file a compliance report by July 7.

However, Karunanidhi in his statement claimed that the HC Bench had expressed “strong condemnation” of the state government’s failure to implement the court orders in the library case. He said the court made it clear that it would take over the administration of the library and ensure all the basic facilities were put in place if the government failed to carry out its promise to set things right at the library by the agreed date (June 30).

When pointed out that the court had not passed such strong strictures nor did it warn of takeover of the library, Manonmani’s counsel R Neelakandan told DC that those strong words and the takeover warning were made “orally” by the Bench and did not figure in the written order. “As you are aware, the courts sometimes make oral observations during the proceedings. This was one such case”, he said.

The mute point here is whether the media and the political parties/leaders can use the ‘oral’ observations made by the court as being part of the final order. Senior judges many times have said ‘no’.