“Contumacious”: Madras High Court On DVAC's Failure To Obtain Sanction For Prosecuting IAS Officers In Tender Irregularities Case

Justice Anand Venkatesh remarked that the court intended to show more seriousness in the matter since it involved corruption at a higher level. The court added that the cases against former ministers, IAS officers, etc., had to be dealt with in an expeditious manner to bring public faith in the system.

“The conduct on the part of the respondent certainly hovers around contumacious conduct. This court is inclined to show more seriousness in this case since cases involving former ministers, IAS officers etc, must be dealt with in an expeditious manner to bring public faith in the system. If such criminal cases are ambushed by long drawn procedures, the case itself loses its teeth by the efflux of time, and everyone forgets about the case,” the court said.

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.

When the petition was taken up, the Additional Public Prosecutor informed the court that the orders were complied with and the final report was filed in the concerned court, but sanctions were yet to be obtained for prosecuting two IAS officers. The APP informed that when a proposal was sent to the Union Government for obtaining sanction, it was returned back requesting the DVAC to resubmit the proposal with revised checklist. It was noted that as per a letter sent by the Ministry of Personnel, the documents in vernacular language had to be accompanied by an authenticated translated version.

Though the APP submitted that the department was following up and there was no misconduct, the court did not accept this submission. The court noted that since the case involved alleged corruption between 2014 and 2018, the DVAC should have dealt the case with alacrity and bought it to a conclusion at the earliest.

Though DVAC also submitted that it was not aware about the updated requirements, the court noted that the respondent, being a specialised agency with only dealt with corruption cases was expected to know about the procedure in existence. The court thus found the explanation given by the department to be “not satisfactory”.

The court said that it was inclined to keep the contempt petition pending to ensure that the translation was carried out expeditiously and the proposal was sent to the Union Government to get sanction for prosecuting the officers.

Thus, the court called for an explanation from the DVAC regarding the delay for getting sanction and posted the case to November 10,2025.

Case Title: Arappor Iyakkam v S Vimala IPS

Case No: Cont P 2012 of 2025