Chennai: Former Madurai city police commissioner (COP) S Davidson Devashirvatham (now ADGP Intelligence) has been given a clean chit by the Madras High Court in the case of issuing passports with the help of fake papers. At the same time, the Madurai bench of the Madras High Court on Wednesday praised Tamil Nadu BJP unit president K Annamalai for exposing the scam. Justice G R Swaminathan described BJP leader Annamalai as a vigilant watchdog of democracy.

In his order, Justice G R Swaminathan said, "I congratulate BJP state president K Annamalai for raising this issue. He has played the role of a watchman in democracy.'' The court further said that judges do not live in zero and they are not isolated from the ground reality. I had read in the newspapers that state BJP president K Annamalai had raised the issue extensively. The case is related to the Indian passport, which was allegedly issued to Sri Lankan nationals, who had submitted fake documents as address and identity proof. Officials of the Regional Passport Office and the State Police are involved in the scam.

Hearing a case challenging the passport authority's decision refusing to modify the petitioner's application, the court's attention was drawn to the matter of fraudulently acquiring an Indian passport. They were informed in connection with a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) asking the Q branch to finish the investigation of the issue within three months, which was later extended for three months. Justice Swaminathan, while commenting on the matter, said, "I am surprised that this direction of the Hon'ble Bench was not followed. However, the final report was not filed on the ground that the guilty government servants were not allowed to prosecute.''

The Madras High Court said, "It is condemnable that a police station in Madurai city has been found to be involved in the fraudulent issuance of 54 passports. Corrupt elements should be arrested at the earliest.'' Advocate D Rameshkumar appeared on behalf of the appellant in the case, while advocating V Malayendran and public prosecutor G Shivaraja appeared on behalf of the defendants. During the hearing of the case, the High Court observed that the regional investigating police officers play the most important role in the verification process. The bribe money used to stop with the nodal officer and there could be no participation of officers above the said rank in the matter.

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