The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court today relaxed the bail conditions imposed on former Tamil Nadu Agriculture Minister "Agri" S S Krishnamurthy who was arrested about two months back on the charge of abetting the suicide of an engineer of his department.
Justice M M Sundaresh relaxed the conditions imposed while granting bail to him earlier this month but said he should cooperate with the investigations in the case.
Justice K Kalyanasundaram had granted him bail on June three with a condition that he should appear at the Office of the Deputy Superintendent of Police, Crime Branch CID, Chennai Metro Unit II, daily and sign till further orders.
Krishnamurthy sought relaxation of the conditions saying he would cooperate with the investigation and he had been obeying all the conditions of the court so far.
He was arrested on April 4 in connection with the suicide of senior engineer in the Agriculture department S Muthukumaraswamy in Tirunelveli on February 20 last.
Muthukumarasamy killed himself by jumping in front of a train, allegedly because he was under pressure to pay money for the seven drivers recruited by him as per rules.
Krishnamurthy's Personal Assistant Pooviah had earlier given a statement that the former minister had pressurised Muthukumarasamy to pay Rs.1.75 lakh each for appointment of seven drivers in the department.
The death of the official snowballed into a major political row prompting AIADMK to drop Krishnamurthy from the state cabinet and strip him off his party posts before he was arrested.
