Contracts not awarded to close relatives of TN CM: AG

Chennai: The Madras high court was on Wednesday informed that the contracts for laying road projects in the state were not awarded to any close relatives of Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K.Palaniswami.

Making the above submission, Advocate General Vijay Narayan further submitted that tenders for the road projects were awarded only to distant relatives of the Chief Minister and hence there is nothing wrong in assigning the works to them.

 Advocate General Vijay Narayan made the submissions before Justice A.D. Jagdish Chandira when the petition from R.S.Bharathi, organising secretary of DMK, which sought a direction to the DVAC to conduct a preliminary inquiry into the allegations against the chief minister and register an FIR, came up for hearing on Wednesday.

 In his petition, Bharathi alleged that the Chief Minister, by abusing his power, allotted highway projects worth Rs 3,500 crore to his relatives and benamis. Bharathi also filed an additional petition on September 11 seeking to transfer the investigation to an independent investigation team since DVAC was technically under the control of chief minister.

 Advocate general submitted that there was no violation of the guidelines framed by the World Bank for award of contracts. Petitioner’s prayer had already been met with by the DV &AC by undertaking preliminary inquiry into the allegations.    

The inquiry report had already been forwarded o the Vigilance Commissioner for appropriate action. 

The petitioner would have the remedy after the decision of the Vigilance Commissioner, he added.

Referring to the allegation that the contractors had quoted exorbitant rates for laying the roads, whereas the cost of laying road for one KM would be around 2.2 crore only, advocate general said the cost would vary, depending upon the soil and other factors.

The judge posted to October 5, further hearing of the case.