Madras HC refuses to set aside court's order in Thanthai Periyar award row

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court (MHC) has refused to set aside the court order in a writ petition filed to direct the State to present the Thanthai Periyar award for Social Justice to eligible persons.

An appellant D Sridhar filed an appeal before the MHC seeking to set aside the single judge order refusing his petition seeking to direct the State to present the Thanthai Periyar award to the eligible applicant out of the 24 applications submitted for the year 2022.

The first division bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy heard the appeal.

The appellant submitted that the State has presented the Thanthai Periyar award to Kali Poongundran, the vice president of Dravidar Kazhagam, for the year 2022.

The appellant contended that Kali Poongundran had not even applied for the award, however, the State had presented the award to him without considering 24 applicants

The appellant also submitted that he had done various works to promote social justice and applied for the Thanthai Periyar award, but the State did not consider his application.

No details are also given of the work that has been done by Kali Poongundran, he contended. The award is given to honor the person who has worked to promote social justice; the learned Single Judge did not consider all these aspects, he added.

After the submission, the bench observed that no rules or regulations are placed on record to suggest that while giving the award the rules or regulations or the procedure have not been followed by the State. Hence, the bench disposed of the appeal and directed the appellant to file an appropriate petition.