TIMES NEWS NETWORK http://epaper.timesofindia.com/Daily/skins/TOINEW/navigator.asp?Daily=TOIBG&showST=true&login=default&pub=TOI Chennai: The Madras HC on Tuesday dismissed a PIL seeking directions to the Tamil Nadu assembly to ask MLAs declare assets on the ground that there was no such law. The petitioner, V Madhav, a Right to Information (RTI) activist, said the assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution in August 1969 to declare assets and update their status every 12 months. Chief minister M Karunanidhi, the force behind the resolution, filed his declarations for about 20 years, till 1989, the petition said. Citing the assembly secretariat’s response to RTI inquiries, Madhav said only a handful of MLAs declared assets during the past 40 years. His counsel Krishna Ananth submitted that though candidates contesting in elections are mandated to declare their asset particulars, there is no mechanism to ascertain as to what was their wealth status after they become MLAs. The petitioner pointed out that members of the executive are already declaring their asset particulars and that the judiciary, too, was in the process of making the details public. “The assembly resolution was passed unanimously and later added to the practice and procedure of the assembly. This showed that the intent of the resolution was to make it mandatory for MLAs to disclose their assets annually,” he said. Declining to entertain the petition, the first bench comprising Chief Justice HL Gokhale and Justice D Murugesan said the assembly had resolved that the government of India be requested to bring forward a legislation for declaration of assets. “Such an enactment hasn’t been passed by the Government of India.” [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
