Ponmudy convicted in DA case, may lose Cabinet post

CHENNAI: In a serious setback to the ruling DMK, the Madras High Court on Tuesday convicted Minister K Ponmudy and his wife P Visalatchi in a disproportionate asset (DA) case after setting aside the acquittal order of the Special Court for Prevention of Corruption Act cases, Villupuram.

Legal experts told DT Next that the senior leader could lose his Assembly membership, and thus the cabinet post, as the conviction is under Section 8 (1) of the Representation of People Act, 1951.

In a related development, the first bench comprising Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala and Justice D Bharatha Chakravarthy directed the Advocate General to submit details of cases pending against all MPs and MLAs, including the courts in which the cases are pending and the stages of the proceedings, by January 30.

On September 29, 2011, the DVAC Villupuram booked Ponmudy and his wife under the Prevention of Corruption (PC) Act, 1988, charging them with amassing wealth between 2006 to 2010 when he was the Higher Education and Mines in the DMK regime. However, in April 2016, the Villupuram special court held that the charges were not proved and acquitted them, which the agency challenged in 2017.

Appearing for Ponmudy, senior counsel NR Elango submitted that there was no error in the trial court considering the first and second accused as two different entities for criminal prosecution under the PC Act.

The case was registered against Ponmudy with malafide intention, launched by the State due to political vendetta, he contended.

The investigation was lopsided and biased, and the explanations regarding the income and its source, though given, were ignored by the investigating officer.

The trial court considered the materials and rightly concluded that the charges were not proved, added the counsel.

However, Justice G Jayachandran said Ponmudy and his wife amassed 64.90 per cent assets over their known sources of income. The trial court failed to understand the substance of the charge against Visalatchi that she, being Ponmudy’s wife, was holding the assets he had acquired through unknown sources, the judge said.

“The overwhelming evidence against the accused and the unsustainable reasons given by the trial court for acquittal by ignoring those evidence compel this court to declare the judgment of the trial court is palpably wrong, manifestly erroneous and demonstrably unsustainable,” he wrote in the order.

Confirming the charges against Ponmudy under sections 13 (2), 13 (1) (e) of the PC Act and 13 (2), 13 (1) (e) of the PC Act, section 109 of IPC against Visalatchi, the judge directed the registry to issue notice to the accused and directed them to appear on December 21 to answer the query about the sentence.