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Judge calls Karunanidhi arrest abuse of power

N Sathiya Moorthy in Madras

Principal Sessions Judge P Ashok Kumar on Friday granted bail to former Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi's son and Madras Mayor M K Stalin and two former Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham ministers in the flyover scam case.

The trio and several others, including DMK chief Karunanidhi, were arrested on Saturday morning.

The judge came down heavily on the state police for violation of the Supreme Court guidelines on the procedure to be followed while taking people into custody.

Karunanidhi was released on Wednesday.

"The way the complaint was lodged and FIR registered without examining witnesses shows that the only motive was to arrest some people," the judge said.

As regards Stalin, the judge said if the police now wants to interrogate him, a notice would have to be issued a day in advance specifying the place and time for his appearance and two counsels of his choice would be permitted to accompany him.

The judge said he was issuing these directions keeping in mind how Karunanidhi was treated at the time of his arrest.

Stalin, the prime accused in the Rs 120 million scam, had surrendered on June 30 and was remanded to judicial custody till July 10. He has been lodged in Madurai prison.

The judge said he was of the view that no purpose would be served by detaining the bail petitioners indefinitely when the FIR itself was suspicious and arrests questionable.

The judge said Madras Municipal Commissioner J T Acharyalu had violated procedures by sending the complaint, on the basis of which the FIR was lodged against Karunanidhi and others, directly to the Crime Branch-CID instead of routing it through the state chief secretary.

He said Acharyalu, who was appointed just a week before the complaint was lodged, had no knowledge of what had happened between 1998 and 2000, when a traffic improvement committee was formed and construction of flyovers in Madras entrusted to a contractor.

Pointing out that the investigating officer had stated that none of the accused received pecuniary advantage in the preparation of estimates or construction of flyovers, the judge asked then what was the urgency for arresting them within hours of the FIR being registered.

The judge said the public prosecutor, while opposing the bail applications, was unable to say what role each of the accused had played in the scam.

Stating that existence of power to arrest was one thing and justification for exercising it another, he said the investigating officer should be able to justify the arrest apart from his power to do so.

"No arrest can be made in a routine manner on a mere allegation of commission of an offence," he said.

Besides Stalin, others who were granted bail on Friday were former ministers K Ponmudi and Kosi Mani, former chief secretary K A Nambiar, project engineers N T Sethuraman and A K Jagadeesan and the Madras Municipal Corporation's standing committee chairman R S Sridhar.

With inputs from PTI

Karunanidhi's Arrest: The Complete Coverage

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