Justice N. Anand Venkatesh directed the Special Court for Prevention of Corruption Act cases to submit the report by August 22, 2025. He also directed S. Vimala, serving as the Superintendent of Police in the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), to file an affidavit explaining the substantial delay in obtaining sanction to prosecute the public servants listed as accused in the case.

₹98.25-crore Corporation contract irregularities during S.P. Velumani’s tenure: Madras HC questions special court over delay in taking chargesheets on file

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh also directs DVAC SP S. Vimala to file an affidavit explaining the delay in obtaining sanction to prosecute public servants

The Madras High Court has called for a report from a Special Court in Chennai with respect to the delay in taking on file the chargsheets filed with respect to alleged irregularities in the award of contracts by Greater Chennai and Coimbatore Municipal Corporations when S.P. Velumani of the AIADMK served as Municipal Administration Minister between 2014 and 2018.

Justice N. Anand Venkatesh directed the Special Court for Prevention of Corruption Act cases to submit the report by August 22, 2025. He also directed S. Vimala, serving as the Superintendent of Police in the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC), to file an affidavit explaining the substantial delay in obtaining sanction to prosecute the public servants listed as accused in the case.

The directions were issued on a second contempt of court petition filed by anti-corruption organisation Arappor Iyakkam, represented by its managing trustee Jayaram Venkatesan, against the Indian Police Service (IPS) officer. The present contempt plea had been filed for non-compliance of an order passed by the court on April 5, 2024, in the first contempt of court petition filed against her predecessor.

Explaining the history of the case, the petitioner’s counsel V. Suresh and D. Nagasaila said, his client had lodged a complaint with the DVAC way back in 2018 regarding illegal award of corporation contracts to those who shared close ties with the then Minister, thereby resulting in the unjust enrichment of public officials and diversion of the money earned into select companies and firms.

When there was no response, Arappor Iyakkam filed a public interest litigation petition seeking a direction to register a First Information Report and constitute a special investigation team. The High Court on July 19, 2021, ordered that “the State should spare no effort in getting to the bottom of the matter and proceed against those found to be responsible for the irregularities.”

Subsequently, a FIR was registered against Mr. Velmunani and 16 others on August 9, 2021. However, another Division Bench of the High Court on November 30, 2022, quashed the FIR with respect to Mr. Velumani alone, for want of prima facie materials, but granted liberty to the DVAC to include his name too in the chargesheet if it was able to gather any fresh materials during the course of investigation.

In 2023, six private firms approached the High Court to quash the FIR with respect to them too. On August 2, 2023, Justice Venkatesh refused to quash the FIR and asked the companies to wait and see whether their names figure in the final report (chargesheet). He also directed the DVAC to complete the investigation and file the final report within six weeks after obtaining sanction to prosecute the public servants.

It was complaining about disobedience of this order, Arappor Iyakkam had filed its first contempt plea in 2024 against the then DVAC SP A. Myilvaganan. Justice Venkatesh closed the plea on April 5, 2024, after recording the submission of DVAC that it had filed two chargesheets before the special court on March 1, 2024. Then, he directed the special court to act upon those chargesheets within two weeks.

Alleging disobedience of this order, the complainant had filed the present contempt plea against incumbent SP Ms. Vimala who told Justice Venkatesh that the chargesheets were returned by the special court on multiple occassions for rectification of defects. She said, almost all the defects pointed out by the court were rectified and the chargesheets were finally resubmitted before the court on July 12, 2025.

Ms. Vimala said, the case was related to a loss of ₹98.25 crore caused to the Greater Chennai and Coimbatore Municipal Corporations. Hence, the DVAC had filed the first chargesheet against 58 accused persons along with over one lakh pages of tender related documents. The second chargesheet was filed against 40 accused persons along with over 50,000 pages of tender related documents.

The special court returned the chargesheets on August 16, 2024 with an observation that several documents were not filled in OCR format, had dull impressions and were in a torn condition. The DVAC rectified the defects and resubmitted the chargesheets on November 11, 2024. However, the special court returned them again on February 14, 2025 for submission of additional supporting materials.

The special court insisted on submitting the Government Orders related to the appointing authority of the public servants who had been listed as the accused, the age proof of the accused, their photographs, e-mail IDs, contact numbers, and so on. The chargesheets were finally resubmitted on July 12, 2025, along with all documents, except the GO, as sought by the special court, Ms. Vimala said.

Stating she had no deliberate intention to disobey court orders, the SP urged the court purge her from the contempt proceedings. However, Justice Venkatesh directed her to explain the long delay in obtaining sanction to prosecute the public servants and also called for a report from the special court for not having taken the chargesheets on file within two weeks as ordered by the High Court on April 5, 2024.