HC declines to quash FIR on seizure of Rs 3.99 crore from BJP MLA' employees

Chennai, Jun 6 (PTI) The Madras High Court on Thursday declined to quash an FIR registered by the CB-CID wing of the Tamil Nadu police in connection with the seizure of Rs 3.99 crore from the employees of BJP Lok Sabha candidate for the just concluded Lok Sabha polls from Tirunelveli, Nainar Nagendran.

Nagendran is the sitting MLA from Tirunelveli segment.

Justice G Jeyachandran closed the petition filed by Kesava Vinayagam, an Organising Secretary of Tamil Nadu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which sought to quash the FIR registered in connection with the seizure from Nellai Express at Tambaram railway station on April 6.

The judge, however, directed the police not to harass Kesava Vinayagam.

In his petition, Kesava Vinayagam submitted that a flying squad on April 6 conducted a search in Nellai Express at Tambaram and found Sathish and Perumal, employees of hotels belonging to Naignar Nagendran and one Naveeen were in possession of huge cash.

The team seized Rs 3.99 crore and handed it over to the Tahsildar and a police case was registered. The three men were arrested and subsequently released on bail, he added.

He said while so, the CBCID re-registered a case and recorded the statements of the three men. Based on their statements, the police recorded the statements of some more persons.

On May 20, the petitioner and two others were served with summons to appear before the police the next day. He expressed his inability to appear as he was in-charge of the Parliamentary elections of the Tamil Nadu state and also an overseer of other state elections, Kesava Vinayagam added.

He submitted he was innocent and has nothing to do with the seizure of money, as also with the arrested persons. After the polling ended on April 19, he was assigned to oversee other states' parliamentary constituencies.

The CB-CID issued summons to him to appear on May 21. Though he was duty bound to appear and to explain that he has nothing to do with the above issue, the petitioner was forced to file this petition only for two reasons--the entire investigation was void-ab-initio (having no legal effect), liable to be stalled and the summons was issued only to degrade him and his position in the party due to political vendetta.

There was no basis for summoning him and further there was no mention in the summons issued on whose statement he was asked to appear for enquiry, he added. PTI CORR SA