Tamil Nadu Governor RN Ravi has given his sanction to prosecute former All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Iyakkam (AIADMK) ministers C Vijayabaskar and BV Ramanan, against whom the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered a case in relation to the 2017 gutka scam. The governor’s decision comes after he was pulled up by the Supreme Court for indefinitely withholding bills passed by the state Assembly. The Tamil Nadu government had in October this year petitioned the apex court against RN Ravi regarding the delay in assenting to bills and had said that the governor had positioned himself as a “political rival to the legitimately elected government.”
The state government had also told the Supreme Court that the governor has not signed remission orders, day to day files and appointment orders, adding that there are delays in approving recruitment orders, granting approval to prosecute MLAs involved in corruption. Following the Supreme Court’s order Ravi returned the ten out of ten bills that were pending with him. The state government in turn called a special Assembly session on November 18 and re-passed all the ten bills.
The high profile gutka scam shot then-Tamil Nadu Health Minister Vijayabaskar into national limelight when Income Tax (IT) officials raided his residences across the state in April 2017. It also resulted in the cancellation of the RK Nagar bye-elections. The IT department’s previous probes in 2016 had brought to light that a pan masala and gutkha manufacturer in Tamil Nadu had evaded tax to the tune of Rupees 250 crore. During the raids, a diary was seized, containing names of those who were believed to have been paid off by the gutkha manufacturers – and one among them was allegedly the state’s Vijayabaskar.
Read: Explained: The who, what and how of the Gutka scam shaking-up Tamil Nadu
With regard to RN Ravi, the Supreme Court on Monday, November 20 again admonished the governor asking “These Bills have been pending since January 2020. It means that the Governor took the decision after the court issued notice. What was he doing for three years? Why should the Governor wait for the parties to approach the Supreme Court?”
Also read: What was he doing for three years?: SC questions TN Governor over delay in clearing Bills