Justice Anand N Venkatesh of the Madras High Court, who stirred up a political controversy in Tamil Nadu by taking suo motu revision orders of the acquittals of sitting DMK ministers, will move to the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court following a portfolio change. Justice Venkatesh, who was dealing with criminal appeals and writ petitions relating to criminal cases involving sitting and former MPs and MLAs, in his new role in the Madurai bench will handle cases relating to mines and minerals, land laws, RTIs, Freedom Fighters’ Pension Scheme and Agriculture Procedure Market. Justice G Jayachandran from October 3 will handle the cases dealt by Justice Venkatesh.
According to the new roster from Chief Justice SV Gangapurwala, the portfolio changes were usual -- done once in three months. Apart from Justice Venkatesh, Justice SM Subramaniam who called for legislation against land grabbing and even directed the ruling party MPs and MLAs to return the encroached lands has also been shifted to the Madurai bench. Subramanian will now sit with Justice V Lakshminarayan and hear division bench writ petitions.
Apart from Venkatesh and Subramaniam, the bench of Justice M Sundar and Justice R Sakthivel which was hearing the Habeas Corpus petitions along with criminal appeals and criminal contempt cases has also been moved to the Madurai bench. They will now handle PILs, Habeas corpus petitions, criminal contempt and criminal appeals. The portfolio in the Madras High Court will now be handled by Justice SS Sundar and Sunder Mohan. On the other side, Justice Bharatha Chakravarthy, Justice MS Ramesh, Justice Anita Sumanth, Justice M Nirmal Kumar, Justice Krishnan Ramasamy and a few others have been moved to the principal bench of the Madras High Court.