The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Madurai Bench stays enquiry against MLA

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 06, 2007
ePaper

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Madurai Bench stays enquiry against MLA

Staff Reporter

Probe to determine her community

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has stayed an enquiry by the Virudhunagar Collector, to determine the community of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MLA M. Chandra, who represents the Rajapalayam constituency reserved for the Scheduled Castes.

Justice M. Jaichandren granted the three-week stay and directed the Registry to transfer the matter to the principal seat of the High Court in Chennai to be heard along with an election petition against her.

The main ground raised by Ms. Chandra was that there could not be two parallel proceedings on the same issue. Since the court was seized of the matter, she sought to restrain the Collector from proceeding further.

Member's claim

In her affidavit, the MLA claimed she belonged to the Hindu `Pallar' community and had served as a panchayat union member, on being elected from a reserved ward, for a full term. Her opponent in the Assembly elections, M. Thangamuthu, filed the election petition challenging her community status.

In the meantime, S. Karuppasamy from Rajapalayam filed a writ petition before the Madurai Bench and obtained a direction to the Collector to conduct an enquiry on the issue. The MLA claimed she was not included as a party in the writ petition and the orders were obtained "surreptitiously."

Pursuant to the orders, she submitted her community certificate issued by the Rajapalayam Tahsildar in 1997 and 38 other documents before the enquiry officers. However, the Collector refused to accept those papers without assigning any reason.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu