Can a Chief Minister pursue a case against the State, ask Madras High Court judges

Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seeks CBI probe into 10-year-old Moulivakkam building collapse tragedy in Chennai.

Can a Chief Minister pursue a case against the State, asked Madras High Court Chief Justice Sanjay V. Gangapurwala and Justice D. Bharatha Chakravarthy on Tuesday, January 2, 2024, when they came across a 2014 writ petition filed by incumbent Chief Minister M.K. Stalin seeking a CBI probe into the Moulivakkam building collapse tragedy in Chennai.

When the nearly 10-year-old case was listed for hearing after a gap of six years, advocate Richard Wilson sought a week’s time to file a Vakalatnama (authorisation given by a litigant to his lawyer) in his name instead of the present counsel on record R. Neelakandan who is now an Additional Advocate General.

Wondering whether the petitioner was interested in pursuing the case despite the office he was holding now, the Chief Justice asked if such a course was permissible. Mr. Wilson replied that the case was filed a decade ago when the petitioner was in the opposition and the treasurer of the DMK

The counsel added that the prayer itself had become infructuous and the case had to be closed. “But I can make that submission only after filing the Vakalat,” he said and urged the court to grant him a week’s time to change the Vakalat.

Accepting his request, the judges adjourned the matter by a week to file a new Vakalatnama.

The issue relates to the collapse of an 11-storey under-construction building on Kundrathur Main Road in Moulivakkam near Porur in Chennai on June 28, 2014. As many as 61 were killed and 27 injured in the incident.

Then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa had constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) and also a Commission of Inquiry headed by retired Madras High Court judge R. Regupathy to inquire into circumstances that led to the collapse of the building constructed by a private real estate developer.