HC reproves 2 lawyers; dismisses PILs against 2 ITI principals

The Madras High Court bench today dismissed separate PILs by two lawyers against as many ITI principals for 'misuse' of central government funds under a students' skill development scheme after admonishing them for filing the petitions with a view to blackmail the government officials and extort money from them.
Justices S Nagamuthu and M V Muralidharan admonished them after they submitted they had realised their mistake, tendered an unconditional apology to the court and also assured that they would not repeat it.
Advocates S Kannan Viswanathan and S Petchi Muthu, against whom several criminal cases were pending in police stations in Tirunelveli district, also returned the money they had taken from the principals of Industrial Training Institutes and the same was also recorded by the court.

The judges also recorded and appreciated the principals for using the amount for building/renovating toilets in a school and a government ITI in Tirunelveli city.
The Judges noted that even the High Court had received anonymous letters against the two advocates for blackmailing the officials and on the cases registered against them and observed that the charges against them were serious in nature.
The advocates, in two separate PILs, alleged that the ITI Principals had misused Rs 90 lakh given by the Union government under SDIS-MES scheme to develop students' skills.

They said they had given representation to various higher officials concerned to take action against the principals, but to no avail.

However, the principals contended that only Rs 20 lakh was sanctioned for ITIs in Tirunelveli disrict under the scheme and they had been spent properly.
In their counter, they said the lawyers were blackmailing them. Fearing threats, one of them had paid Rs 2.5 lakh to Petchi Muthu and the other Rs 1 lakh to Kannan Viswanathan.
They also filed in court the mobile recording of the conversation with Kannan Viswanathan as proof.
Both the advocates who appeared with their counsel in court tendered an unconditional apology and said they would not repeat their mistake.
The advocates also assured the court that they would not be vindictive towards the principals for filing a counter affidavit and registering the cases.

The principals also said they would not take any further step against the advocates.
The judges said the advocates had filed the petitions not with public interest or genuine interest, but with ulterior motive and dismissed the PILs.