TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2022 (3) TMI 1537
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....al petitions are considered and decided by this common order. 2 One Senthil Balaji was the Transport Minister in the AIADMK Government headed by late Selvi J. Jayalalithaa sometime during 2011- 2015 and there were lot of complaints against him, in that, it was alleged that he had received huge amounts as bribe from various persons for appointing them as Conductors and Drivers in the Transport Corporations. In connection with these allegations, three FIRs were registered against him which culminated in charge sheets being filed against him and those charge sheets are now pending on the file of the Assistant Sessions Court (Special Court for trial of criminal cases relating to MPs and MLAs), Chennai, the details of which are as under: C....
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....ed State Public Prosecutor, who was appointed by us as Amicus Curiae. 7 At the outset, it may be apropos to state here that charge sheets have been filed in the predicate offence by the Central Crime Branch and therefore, the law laid down by the Full Bench of this Court in Selvanathan @ Raghavan vs. State by the Inspector of Police [1988 L.W. (Crl.) 503] will not apply to this case, as it is common knowledge that in Selvanathan (supra), the issue before the Full Bench was the certified copies of which documents can be furnished to an accused before charge sheet is filed in the case in question. As stated above, in this case, charge sheets have been filed and in the list of documents annexed to the charge sheets, the Central Crime Branch....
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....se for which the copy is required." 9 Mr. Sankaranarayanan placed strong reliance upon this rule and contended that this rule gives a substantive right to a third party to obtain certified copies of documents from a Criminal Court. We are unable to subscribe to the above submission of the learned Additional Solicitor General for the simple reason that a complete reading of Rule 210, ibid., shows that it lays down only the procedure for making a third party copy application, in that, it says that a third party copy application shall be allowed only by an order of the Court obtained on a petition supported by an affidavit setting forth the purpose for which the copy is required. Just because the affidavit discloses the purpose for which th....
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....e to grant the certified copy of a document sought by a third party. 11 Mr. Sankaranarayanan submitted that the foundation for the investigation under the PMLA Act is the materials gathered by the police in the scheduled offence without which the guilty cannot be brought to book under the PML Act. In this case, Mr. Sankaranarayanan submitted that Senthil Balaji who was a Minister in the AIADMK cabinet defected to the DMK, won in the 2021 Assembly election on a DMK ticket and is now the Minister of Electricity; therefore, the police are reluctant to share the investigation materials gathered by them with the Enforcement Directorate, despite the mandate of Section 54-f of the PML Act. Section 54-F, ibid., reads thus: "54. Certain ....
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...., set aside that portion of the impugned orders which states "certified copies of unmarked documents cannot be granted and the said prayer is accordingly negatived." However, we are not remanding the matter to the Special Court, because, in the third party copy application, for instance, in Cr.M.P. No.20055 of 2021 in C.C.No.25 of 2021, the Enforcement Directorate has made an omnibus prayer which reads as follows: List of documents 1. Certified copy of the final report filed u/s 173(2) of Cr.P.C., 1973 along with relied upon documents (RUDs). 2. Certified copy of the statements of witnesses recorded u/s 161 and 164 of Cr.P.C., 1973. 3. Certified copy of the complaint and FIR registered in Cr.No.441/2015 by the ....