Chennai: Madras high court on Tuesday dismissed a plea moved by former DMK minister M R K Panneerselvam seeking to discharge him from a corruption case registered in 2011 by DVAC for alleged amassment of assets to the tune of ₹3.01 crore disproportionate to his known sources of income.When the plea came up for hearing on Tuesday, Justice V Lakshminarayanan dismissed the plea. The case was pending before the principal district and sessions court in Cuddalore.According to the prosecution, Panneerselvam accumulated disproportionate wealth while serving as the minister for backward classes and welfare from 1996 to 2001 and later as the minister for health and family welfare from 2006 to 2011. In 2016, the special judge in Cuddalore discharged the minister from the case. However, the state filed a revision plea against this order.In April 2025, the high court set aside the discharge and directed the special court to frame charges and proceed with the trial on a day-to-day basis. While setting aside the discharge, the high court noted that there was prima facie material to proceed against the minister and his family and that the findings of the trial court were perverse and had to be interfered with.The court then remanded the matter back to the trial court. It was argued that when the court took cognisance in 2025, Panneerselvam was a cabinet minister and, therefore, the governor’s sanction had to be obtained.Opposing the plea, the state argued that at the time of registering the FIR and the filing of the chargesheet, Panneerselvam was not even an MLA, and thus no sanction was necessary to prosecute in the present case.
