When lawmakers break the law

State Handlooms Minister N K K P Raja, son of a former minister and senior DMK leader, is facing charges of abduction and land-grabbing in his home district, Erode. According to N Elangovan, a villager from Erode, the minister’s henchmen had abducted his wife Malarvizhi and her family and had held them against their will in an effort to usurp a 10-acre tract. In a habeas corpus petition before the Madras High Court, he pleaded with the court to intervene and provide them security. When the allegedly abducted persons were brought to the court during the hearing, Elangovan claimed that they were set free because of the court case. The court directed the police to provide protection and house the family in Chennai till the case was settled.

This case found particular favour with the media. Raja, needless to say, has denied the allegations — in a very local style. In a land where every political party has a television channel, Raja faced the cameras of his own King TV and said to his electorate, “I am innocent and a victim of a political vendetta. There is no truth in the allegations,” adding that he would give a “fitting reply” in the court.

The second minister in the dock is Tourism Minister N Suresh Rajan, and he stands accused of attacking and abusing a government employee. In an incident that took place three months ago, the minister and his men, including a government pleader, attacked Deputy Collector S Janardhanan and abused him, maliciously invoking his caste name. The official, a Dalit, was in charge of the distribution of free colour TVs, which were promised by the DMK during the last Assembly poll.

After the local Kanyakumari district police station failed to act on his complaint, the official approached the District Collector and Police Superintendent. There were attempts to sort out the issue out of court, but Janardhanan approached the Rights Panel last week and lodged a complaint.

Minister Suresh Rajan; his assistants Ramasamy and Sheik Dawood; Government Pleader Mahesh and another advocate, Tamarai Bharathi, were named in the FIR. The charges included attempt to murder and atrocities against an SC/ST.

“I have not attacked anyone; it is a false charge,” said Rajan, who incidentally was named in a similar case in 1998 during his previous stint in the same department. In the earlier case, Manikandan, the Town Secretary of the farmer’s wing of the minister’s own party, alleged that Rajan and two others abused him, called him his caste name and attacked him. The third case is comparatively minor. The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court refused to discharge Social Welfare Minister Geeta Jeevan from a corruption case registered in 2003 against her, her husband, father, mother and two brothers on the grounds that she approached the court frivolously without any documentary evidence.

The case dates back to 1996-2001, during the previous DMK regime. At the time, she was chairperson of the Tuticorin District Panchayat, and her father N Periyasamy, the first accused, was the MLA of the constituency. According to the case records, Periyasamy purchased properties that were valued beyond his known sources of income, which were registered in the names of his family members, including Geeta.

The minister claimed in the court on Wednesday that she bought the properties herself, using money donated by supporters during election time. The Bench refused to buy the oral submission and refused to discharge her without any documentary evidence to prove her claim.

Geeta Jeevan became the Minister of Social Welfare when her predecessor, Poongothai Aladi Aruna, tendered her resignation after a phone tap exposed her conversation with a top vigilance official in which she asked him to go easy on a relative facing bribery charges.