Madurai: The Madras High Court today dismissed former Union minister M K Alagiri's plea to quash an FIR against him in a land grabbing case, observing that there were prima facie materials for registration of the case. Rejecting Alagiri's petition, Justice N Kirubakaran of the bench here said, “It is too early to challenge the FIR which is the first step to set the criminal law in motion. It is not expected to contain all the materials in detail... not an encyclopaedia. Investigation alone will reveal the truth.” He directed the Investigating Officer (IO) to complete the probe in 16 weeks and file a report.
Alagiri, son of DMK chief M Karunanidhi, has been accused of creating false documents and grabbing 44 cents of land belonging to a temple at Sivarakottai on city outskirts for Daya College of Engineering owned by a trust headed by him. The Crime Branch and Anti-Land Grabbing Special Cell Police filed the case on a complaint by the temple executive officer.
Referring to the argument of counsel for Alagiri that the complaint had been filed at a time when the Supreme Court was to provide a favourable order on a Special Leave Petition regarding affiliation for the college, the judge pointed out the temple officer was not a party to the affiliation case. He also said delay in initiation of complaint and criminal proceedings could not be a ground for quashing an FIR.
“As soon as the offences came to the knowledge of complainant, a case has been filed,” he said adding “crime never dies.” The judge said prima facie materials showed that there was criminal conspiracy, and cheating. There was dishonest way of inducing the delivery of the property to the Alagiri Educational Trust which purchased the land for the college.
There were charges of forgery for the purpose of cheating and using forged documents as genuine documents. Allegations in the complaint had to be considered in toto. The IO should decide whether there was any offence committed by the accused. The petitioner could place all his contentions before the IO and he would look into the same.
As the petitioner was claiming that all transactions had been done through records, he could place them before the IO. With everything on record, there could not be any problem for the petitioner to produce the same to the IO. “The investigation is in primary stage. It is too early to say that allegations in the FIR were vague,” the judge said.
Referring to the argument that FIR had been filed out of political vendetta, the judge said, “There is noting to prove that the prosecution is mala fide. The investigation is in threshold and witnesses were being examined.” Alagiri, who has been granted conditional bail in the case, said the FIR had been filed with mala fide intention and sought to quash it.
