2019 should not be allowed to begin with dirty Marina beach, observed the Madras high court while asking the Chennai corporation commissioner and city police commissioner to go for morning walk from 6 am to 7 am at the Marina beach for one month so that they can monitor the work of cleaning Marina beach and ensure that the beach is cleaned by December 31.
A division bench comprising Justices Vineet Kothari and Anita Sumanth also directed the Chennai corporation commissioner to prepare a comprehensive action plan for cleaning Marina beach, regulating the hawkers on and relocating the fishermen.
Observing that it is a beautiful beach and it should be beautiful, Justice Vineet Kothari heading the bench had said, “My first visit to Marina beach was bad. We will not allow you to keep the beach dirty”.
Likewise, the year 2018 witnessed many heartfelt observations by the Madras HC, important judgments, several directions to authorities to do their work for which they had been paid.
Chief Minister Eddappadi K. Palaniswami received a setback on October 12 as the Madras high court had ordered a CBI probe into charges of corruption in the award of huge road contracts by him to relatives. The opposition parties had called for his resignation with the DMK chief M.K. Stalin even demanding that the governor should sack him if he did not voluntarily step down. Allowing a petition from the DMK, Justice A.D. Jagdish Chandira slammed the state directorate of vigilance and anti-corruption saying its preliminary inquiry was “nothing but a perfunctory exercise that had not been done in a fair manner. Hence, the case must be necessarily transferred to any other independent agency not under the control of the persons in power”. However, the Chief Minister had moved the Supreme Court and obtained a stay on October 29.
In yet another setback to the ruling party, the Madras high court had on December 13 set aside a GO, which directed the secretary to Justice R. Regupathy Commission of Inquiry, appointed to probe the alleged irregularities in the construction of new secretariat during the DMK regime, to hand over all the records, reports of the investigating agencies, statements and evidences collected by it to the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption. Allowing the petitions from DMK president M.K. Stalin and treasurer M. Duraimurugan, Justice Pushpa Sathyanarayana had said a mere reading of the G.O in its entirety would go to show that the government has not even cared to receive the files from the Commission, much less to read and make out a prima facie case for referring the matter to DVAC. Since no subjective satisfaction of the government was arrived at before handing over the papers to the DVAC, the G.O itself was passed in violation of the interim orders passed by this court, the judge had added.
Putting an end to a plea to cremate the body of former Chief Minister late J. Jayalalithaa as per the rite, rituals, customs of Vaishnava Iyengar Brahmin community, to which Jayalalalithaa belong to, Justice S. Vaidyanathan had on October 12 dismissed a petition from Amrutha, who claimed that she was the daughter of Jayalalithaa. “From the huge hue and cry made by Amrutha and the silence of the class II legal heirs (Deepa Jayakumar and Deepak Jayakumar) of late J.Jayalalithaa, an inference can be drawn that they only try to grab the property of late Jayalalithaa and not for any other purpose, as Deepa Jayakumar has been dreaming of usurping the sensitive post”. When the claim of Amrutha that she was the direct legal heir of Jayalalithaa remains unestablished by means of substantial evidence, the question of cremating the remains of Jayalalithaa as per rites, rituals and customs of Sri Vaishnava Iyengar Brahmin community does not arise, the judge had added.
