PIL in Madras HC seeks probe into Cockroach Janata Party leader Saurav Das's background

Chennai: A businessman on Friday approached the Madras High Court to direct the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to immediately conduct a detailed, thorough and fair probe pertaining to the background and details of Yogesh Sharma alias Saurav Das, the National Co-Convenor of Cockroach Janata Party and his parents.

In his petition, Ganesh Kumar said that allegedly Das' lineage goes back to Nepal and that this has to be probed. If found true, "he cannot lecture about our government and our judiciary." He charged Das with "abusing" the judiciary.

If found guilty, the petitioner sought cancelling the passport and Aadhar card of Das.


The first bench comprising Chief Justice S A Dharmadhikari and Justice G Arul Murugan before whom the PIL filed by Ganesh Kumar of Kancheepuram district came up for hearing, ordered notice, returnable by six weeks, to the Union government, Regional Passport Officer and 10 others.

In his petition, Kumar also sought a direction to the Ministry of Electronics and Telecommunications to block the Twitter and Instagram handle by name "Saurav Das" and prevent him from further making any derogatory statements against the judiciary and Judges of the Supreme Court.

He also sought to restrain Das from making any defamatory, browbeating, abusive, vulgar, barbaric and disparaging statements against the judiciary of the nation on the whole, specifically personal remarks against Judges of the Supreme Court, high courts and lower judiciary, in the guise and garb of freedom of speech and expression, in any media including social media platforms, either through him or through any of his friends/colleagues/agents/representatives pending disposal of the present case.

Das has been constantly abusing judiciary and this in itself was an abuse of the Constitution, Kumar added.

He said if the information that Das had Nepali roots was true, this person called Yogesh Sharma has deliberately concealed all of these facts and has fraudulently obtained Aadhar, Voter ID card, passport in India.

He has no business to abuse the judiciary. In the interest of the nation, a deeper probe as to the aspects namely how he managed to get an Aadhar card, passport and what were the sources and from whom he was getting funds and making abuses against the judiciary on the whole were needed to be undertaken. In the name of accountability his account from where he was getting funds has to be definitely probed, he added.