The Madras High Court on Friday (May 16, 2025) sought to know whether Tamil Nadu Congress Committee (TNCC) president K. Selvaperunthagai’s nephew R. Veeramani is one of the directors of a private company involved in implementing a State government scheme to eradicate manual scavenging and promote ‘sanipreneurs’.
A Division Bench of Justices G.R. Swaminathan and V. Lakshminarayanan posed the question during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar, alias A. Shankar, seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into alleged misappropriation of public funds under the scheme.
Justice Swaminathan told Advocate General P.S. Raman that the petitioner had produced a December 16, 2024 press release containing a public statement made by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin that Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (DICCI) was included as a collaborator only at the instance of Mr. Selvaperunthagai.
Since the petitioner had also claimed that after the collaboration with the government, DICCI’s president Ravi Kumar Narra and Mr. Veeramani had jointly floated a company named Gen Green Logistics to implement the project, the judges wanted to know whether the claims made by the petitioner were true.
“If it is true, then you are in trouble,” Justice Swaminathan told the A-G before granting time till May 21, 2025 for the Chennai Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board (CMWSSB) to submit all records related to the Annal Ambedkar Business Champions Scheme (AABCS) formulated in 2023 to encourage ‘sanipreneurs’.
The petitioner had stated that instead of implementing the scheme through government departments, the State had chosen to collaborate with DICCI for the purpose of identifying beneficiaries, who could be offered bank loans with capital subsidies and interest subvention for the purchase of sanitation-related equipment.
After the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the government and DICCI, Mr. Narra and Mr. Veeramani had started Gen Green Logistics, which entered into an agreement with the beneficiaries, to operate mechanised equipment and disburse fixed monthly payments to them, he alleged.
The petitioner claimed that a major scam had taken place in the implementation of the scheme through private bodies. However, rebutting the allegations, the A-G told the court that DICCI was selected as a collaborator on the recommendation of Safai Karamchari Andolan, a national-level organisation working for the eradication of manual scavenging.
‘Other States collaborated with DICCI’
He said, a Government Order was issued on June 8, 2023 for exempting CMWSSB from going through the usual tender transparency process only because many other States too had implemented similar projects in collaboration with DICCI. The project had been implemented successfully in Hyderabad, he said.
The A-G, further, wondered how the court could direct the CBI to register a First Information Report (FIR) when the petitioner had not approached the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) at the first instance. He told the court the 2023 G.O. was the only record available with the government with respect to the scheme.
On his part, Additional Advocate General (AAG) J. Ravindran, representing CMWSSB, questioned the motive behind the petitioner having filed a case related to a 2023 scheme by way of a PIL petition during the summer vacation sitting in May 2025. He said, the petitioner does not hold a clean record, and the PIL petition had been filed with bald allegations.
Asserting that the CMWSSB had nothing to hide and that it was not shying away from producing the records, the AAG said, the two days’ time granted by the court on Wednesday (May 14, 2025) was insufficient to submit the voluminous records and therefore, the board required a reasonable amount of time for the production of the documents.
The judges accepted his request and directed the High Court Registry to list the case next on May 21, 2025, when the same Bench would continue to hear the matter.
Published – May 16, 2025 03:11 pm IST
