The Madras High Court on Thursday (June 25, 2026) refused to condone a delay of 839 days in preferring a third party criminal revision petition against the acquittal of former DMK Minister P. Geetha Jeevan and her family members from a 2002 disproportionate assets case to the tune of ₹2.31 crore.

Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan dismissed the condone delay petition filed by Thoothukudi based advocate S. Shanmugasundaram after not finding any ground to entertain the plea. He also highlighted that a third party to the proceedings could not be allowed to file a revision against an order of acquittal.

The Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption (DVAC) had primarily registered the case in 2012 against Ms. Jeevan’s father N. Periasamy for having allegedly amassed wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income between 1996 and 2001 when he was the Thoothukudi MLA.

The other family members were added as co-accused since the money had been allegedly used to purchase properties in their names. However, the trial court held that the prosecution had failed to prove the charges levelled against the accused and acquitted all of them on December 14, 2022.

The present petitioner claimed that he waited till Feburary 23, 2024 for the DVAC to file an appeal against the order of acquittal. Since the investigating agency did not do so, he filed a petition before the Thoothukudi Principal District and Sessions Court seeking certified copies of all relevant documents.

When the sessions court refused to furnish those copies, he had filed petitions twice before the High Court and obtain orders directing the trial court to give him certified copies of all necessary documents. Therefore, all these proceedings led to a delay of 839 days in filing the revision petition, he claimed.

However, Justice Ilanthiraiyan pointed out that though the petitioner had obtained all documents on July 22, 2024, he had not explained why the revision petition was filed, along with the plea to condone the delay, before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court only on March 19, 2025.

“Further, nothing is mentioned in the affidavit filed in support of the condone delay petition as to how the findings of the trial Court is erroneous or whether there was any perverse appreciation of evidence or non-consideration of any evidence or whether there is any glaring defect in the procedure or any manifest error on a point of law and consequently whether there has been a flagrant miscarriage of justice. In fact, this court shall entertain the revision order against the order of acquittal only on such exceptional cases as stated above,” the judge wrote.

He also observed that criminal proceedings could not be abused as an instrument to wreak vengeance either for political reasons or otherwise by a third party to the criminal proceedings. “Therefore, the third party to the criminal proceedings is not legally entitled to maintain criminal revision against discharge or acquittal recorded by the trial court,” he concluded.