Vijaykant pulled up for failure to move SC in defamation case

Coming down on DMDK founder Vijaykant and five others for "complete wastage of judicial time", the Madras High Court today imposed a cost of Rs 2,000 each for failure to file a transfer petition in the Supreme Court on their pleas challenging a CrPC section under which defamation cases are filed by public prosecutors on behalf of government.
The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M M Sundresh, gave the directive when a batch of 12 petitions filed by Vijaykant and five of his partymen, including his wife Premalatha, came up for hearing.
The bench noted that during the last hearing of the petitions, challenging the constitutional validity of Section 199 of CrPC, the petitioners had submitted that they would move the Supreme Court seeking transfer of their pleas pending before this court as a similar prayer was before the apex court.

Despite the lapse of more than two months time since the last hearing, the transfer petition had not even been filed. "It is complete wastage of Judicial time. We consider it appropriate to impose a cost of Rs.2,000/- per petition to be deposited with the Mediation and Conciliation centre within a week from today," the bench ordered.
It warned the counsel for Vijayakant and others that if no transfer petition was filed within 15 days from today all the writ petitions shall stand dismissed for non-prosecution. The court adjourned the cases to March 31.
Facing a slew of defamation cases filed by the AIADMK government in different courts across the state for their remarks against the then chief minister Jayalalithaa and other ministers at public meetings and in media interactions, Vijaykant and others have moved the high court challenging CrPC section 199 which empowers public prosecutors file such cases on behalf of government.