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By reopening "closed" corruption investigations against serving ministers and DMK officials, the Madras High Court's Justice N Anand Venkatesh has sparked a political uproar in Tamil Nadu. In the last two weeks, Justice Venkatesh has reopened three cases against DMK leaders that the district courts had previously closed. He did this by taking suo motu cognizance against the lower courts' rulings that let the politicians off the hook.
Justice Venkatesh has apparently taken it upon himself to expose the rot in the state's judicial corridors by revealing a "shocking bid to manipulate the criminal justice system" On August 10, the court took suo motu notice of K Ponmudy, the higher education minister for Tamil Nadu, who had been found not guilty. This revealed how Vellore's principal district judge had assembled the testimony of 172 prosecution witnesses and 381 documents in just four days to produce a 226-page decision finding all of the defendants not guilty.
The judge took up the cases of two additional sitting ministers, Thangam Thennarasu and KKSSR Ramachandran, who had been exonerated in the disproportionate assets cases brought against them within a few days of this order, declaring that "something is very rotten in the Special Court for MP/MLA cases."
AGES, STRESS, & BATTLES
In his own words, Justice Venkatesh told his personal journey as a youngster from North Madras at a recent public gathering. Back then, North Madras was thought to be a backwater region where most people worked in industries. Justice Venkatesh, who was born and raised in this country, struggled in school with his studies. He would perform poorly in other subjects, receiving just single-digit marks. He described his trip during the event, saying that it had been difficult for him to pass even one subject. His teachers instantly promoted him to the next class because they didn't want to keep him in their class for more than a year due to his terrible handwriting.
