Madras High Court Calls For State's Response Over Delay In Obtaining Sanction To Prosecute IAS Officers In Tender Irregularities Case

Justice Anand Venkatesh noted that even though all the papers in connection with the case were ready by January 2024, no steps had been taken till October 2024 for obtaining the sanction, by which time the Union Government had issued a new checklist mandating translated copies to be filed along with the application.

“As was observed in an earlier order by this court on 13-10-25, in cases involving corruption at higher places, top priority has to be given to complete the proceedings expeditiously and bring it to a logical conclusion at the earliest. Therefore, whenever there is undue delay, the court will interfere to ensure corruption cases are not crucified by means of delay. In fact, even for the proceedings to reach this stage, this court had to continuously keep prodding the DVAC from time to time,” the court said.

The court also noted that sanctions had been obtained for 4 officers, but were kept pending for only 2 without any reason.

“What were you doing from January to October 2024? There's no reason at all. No logic. You prepared all papers for 4 persons and got the sanction. But for these, you kept it pending. Every time someone needs to keep pushing you. Definitely, I want an explanation. There's 19 19-month delay,” the court asked during the hearing.

The court also remarked that the people of the country were voting for the government and imposing their faith on the executive, thinking that they would fight against corruption, however, even after having all the necessary documents, the government had no interest in fighting the corruption cases.

“When people are believing a system, electing a government, they are trusting the executive thinking it'll take care of the administration. When these kinds of corruption charges come, you also have materials, then why is it your least priority?” the court asked.

Background

SP Velumani was accused of abusing his official position while he was serving as the Minister for Municipal Administration. It was alleged that he had extended large-scale favouritism while awarding tenders for road works in Chennai Corporation and Coimbatore Municipal Corporation to his relatives and his close associates.

Arappor Iyakkam, an NGO, made complaint with the DVAC following the DVAC was accorded permission to the DVAC to conduct preliminary enquiry. A preliminary enquiry was conducted and the DVAC was accorded sanction to register a regular FIR. Thus, an FIR was registered for offences under Sections 120B read with Section 420 and 409 of IPC and Section 13(2) read with Section 13(1)(c) and Section 13(1)(d) of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

When some of the companies approached the High Court to quash the FIR against them, the court had refused the same and directed the DVAC to file the final report before the concerned jurisdictional court after getting a necessary sanction order against the public servants. Since this direction was not complied with, the NGO approached the court with a contempt petition.

In the previous hearing, the court had sought an explanation from the DVAC for the delay in getting the sanction.

Though the department filed a status report, the court was not satisfied with the same. The court noted that the status report was silent regarding the delay in sending the documents for getting the Union Government's sanction from January 2024 to October 2024.

Thus, the court directed the DVAC to file a status report and address the queries raised by the court regarding the delay and adjourned the case to 24^th November 2025.