Needle of suspicion points to Raja

[July 1, 2009 – The Pioneer]

The father-son duo that tried to influence a Madras High Court judge through a Union Minister for a favourable verdict in a criminal case was close to Telecom Minister A Raja.

Justice R Reghupathy created a sensation on Monday evening in open court in Chennai when he alleged that a Union Minister had tried to influence him for grant of anticipatory bail to a doctor and his son in a forged marksheet case filed by the CBI. The judge said the Union Minister called him twice for granting anticipatory bail to Krishnamoorthy and son S Kiruba Sridhar, facing a CBI inquiry for malpractices in medical college exams of Pondicherry University.

While the judge did not name the Minister who had tried to put pressure on him, documents available with The Pioneer show Dr C Krishnamoorthy enjoys close proximity with Telecom Minister A Raja.

Krishnamoorthy is a close associate of Raja and belongs to the Minister's hometown, Peramballur. He is the owner of the building which housed a law firm run by Raja before he became a Minister. Krishnamoorthy is also the managing director of a Coimbatore-based real estate company, Kovai Shelters Promotors India Pvt Ltd, formed on January 19, 2007. As per the documents available with the Registrar of Companies, Raja's nephew Dr R Sridhar and nieces R Anandabhuvaneswari and R Santhanalakshmi are directors in this company and jointly hold 45 per cent shares in Kovai Shelters.

The Pioneer had on January 12, 2009, reported that Raja's nephew, a Class-I officer in the Ministry of Environment and Forests, violated the service conduct rules by remaining on the board of a private firm without informing the Government. Sridhar had secured the Government job by providing false experience certificates. Applications for this post were invited during Raja's tenure in the Environment Ministry. The mandatory five-year experience certificate was falsely issued to Sridhar by his research guide Dr L Kannan, who was later elevated as the Vice-Chancellor of Thiruvalluvar University.

Krishnamoorthy also owns a big investment company, AGM Investments Finances Pvt Ltd. This company, formed in September 1990 by one Arun G Mehta in Chennai, was acquired by Krishnamoorthy in February 2008 along with his brother Satyanarayanan.

On Tuesday, Justice Reghupathy spilled the beans when the advocate, appearing for S Kirub Shridhar, a third-year student in a private medical college in Puducherry, and his doctor father Krishnamoorthy, complained that the judge was not granting bail to his clients on the basis of prosecution submissions.

The advocate's remarks came after the judge said he was not inclined to grant any relief as their pleas had been rejected on June 15 itself. Annoyed, the judge said, "A Union Minister talked to me about the matter. You yourself know every thing. Unless an unconditional apology is tendered by you, I will incorporate every detail in my order."

Justice Reghupathy said he would also write to the Prime Minister about the "pressure exerted" on him.

[The writer is Special Correspondent of ‘The Pioneer’]