Chennai, Jan 10 (Representative) Days after ED officials conducted raids at his residencesand his engineering college at Katpadi in Vellore district and seized documents,the Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed DMK MP Kathir Anand’s pleaseeking the copies seized by the ED and directed him to cooperate with the probe. The Court also rejected his plea to de-seal the server room of his Kingston Engineering College, in which Mr Kathir Anand, who is the son of ruling DMK General Secretary and Tamil Nadu Water Resources Minister Duraimurugan, is the Chairman.The two day raids conducted by the ED pertained to the seizure of cash during the2019 Lok Sabha poll which were allegedly meant for distribution to the voters. Following the 2019 raids, the elections were postponed. When it was held later, Mr Kathir Anand was elected to the Lok Sabha for the first time and was reelected from the same Vellore seat in the 2024 polls, which the DMK swept winning allthe 40 seats (39 in Tamil Nadu and the lone seat in the Union Territory of Puducherry). When Mr Anand’s plea to unseal the server room came up for hearing, a DivisionBench comprising Justices S M Subramaniam and N Jothiraman rejected it anddirected him to cooperate with the ED probe. Senior counsel P Wilson, who appeared for the petitioner, submitted that the serveris essential for the college management as the day-to-day activities have come toa stand still and that the management was not able to take administrative actionsas it was sealed by ED.
He said exams were on since December and that access to the server is necessaryto monitor and verify their attendance, payment of tuition and examination fees, andother administrative reasons.Observing that the ED has seized the hard disks, Mr Wilson wanted the Court to direct the ED to serve the copy of of the documents seized from the institution. Objecting to it, Special Public Prosecutor N Ramesh appearing for the ED, submitted thatthe petition filed by Mr Anand became infructuous as ED had already unsealed the serverroom on January 7 itself after the raids. He also contended that the college management had not cooperated with the agency duringthe raids in the college premises and the officials were made to wait for several hours to openthe server room, which was eventually opened after breaking open the door by bringing incarpenters to proceed with the searches. He also submitted that the day-to-day affairs of the college management and students wouldnot be affected as the ED, with the help of computer forensic experts, had narrowed it downonly to two of the nine servers and seized hard disks from computers related to the college’s accounts. The ED seized unaccounted money of Rs 1.99 crore and Rs 75 lakh from the accounts and Chairman’s offices, respectively and hence the seizure of hard disks, the PP added.After hearing both the sides, the Bench opined that neither the students nor the managementwere affected by the ED’s search and seizure and directed the college administration tocooperate with the ED as per the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.