Corruption like cancer: Madras High Court seeks details on independence of Tamil Nadu DVAC, corruption cases probed in last 3 years

The Madras High Court today asked the State to furnish details indicating how secure the anti-corruption set up in Tamil Nadu is (S Karuppu Ezhuthu Kazhagam v. The Government of Tamil Nadu and ors)..The Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy has further also called for information on the the cases attended to by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) in the last three financial years and the degree of independence afforded to the DVAC.."…we want to know how secure is your Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption …We have no doubt you have a very attractive website, 20,000 pages of nothing written, but we want to get to the meat of the matter … Or are we in such a fools paradise that we have to believe that there is no corruption over there?", Chief Justice Banerjee orally remarked today. .The Bench was dealing with a pending petition concerning the seizure of Rs 70,060 from the office of a sub-registrar in Villivakkam back in 2018. The petitioner had raised concerns over ensuring purity in administration. .The nature of the case today led Chief Justice Banerjee to make pertinent oral observations on the need to act against corruption, which he observed is prevalent in all spheres of functioning. He went on to opine that corruption is akin to cancer. .“We want to see if we can put a mechanism in place because corruption is so cancerous, you know. Corruption will ultimately kill us. It is because of corruption you have land grabbing, it is because of corruption, all these water bodies have evaporated", he said. .A passing observation was also made in reference to cash seized in the State around the time of the elections. "They (cash) couldn’t have just sprouted from thin air.. we have also had no reports of asteroids landing recently with money", Chief Justice Banerjee remarked..The Court proceeded to adjourn the matter by three weeks."The Official Respondents will indicate the anti-corruption set up in the State, the extent of corruption attended to by such set up over the last three Financial Years and the degree of independence afforded to such department", reads the order passed today.