Why do corruption cases against IAS officers move at snail's pace, wondered Justice N. Anand Venkatesh of the Madras High Court while dealing with a ₹98.25-crore corporation contract corruption case involving former AIADMK Minister S.P. Velumani and a few others.
Showing displeasure over the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) not having obtained sanction to prosecute IAS officers K.S. Kandasamy and K. Vijaya Karthikeyan to date, despite completing the investigation in the corruption case in January 2024 itself, the judge insisted that the prosecuting agency must necessarily explain the delay to the court.
He agreed with advocate V. Suresh, representing anti-corruption organisation Arappor Iyakkam which had lodged the complaint against Mr. Velumani and others in 2021, that the Tamil Nadu government need not have spent nearly ₹30 lakh to translate around 12,000 pages of documents now if the DVAC had obtained the sanction against the two IAS officers before October 2024.
“The State shows speed in doing every thing else. The same speed should be shown when it comes to taking action against corruption too. Otherwise, people will lose faith. In fact, action against corruption should get the first priority. Everything else can wait. Contrarily, what we see is that the action against corruption gets the last priority,” Justice Venkatesh rued before adjourning the contempt plea.
Case Details:
- Case Amount: The case involves alleged irregularities and corruption amounting to approximately ₹98.25 crore in awarding contracts in the Chennai and Coimbatore corporations.
- Key Accused: The primary accused in the case is S.P. Velumani, a former minister, and the case also names IAS officers K.S. Kandasamy and K. Vijaya Karthikeyan.
- Investigating Agency: The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) of Tamil Nadu investigated the case.
- Current Status: The investigation was completed in January 2024, and the DVAC concluded that there was enough evidence to prosecute the officers.
- Reason for Delay: To prosecute an IAS officer, a sanction from the central government is required. The DVAC only sought this sanction on August 30, 2025, after a contempt petition was filed by the anti-corruption organization Arappor Iyakkam. The request was initially returned due to a lack of translated documents and was resubmitted in November 2025 after translation at public cost.
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