Chennai, June 26 (PTI) Justice M Nirmal Kumar of the Madras High Court will hear an assets case against former AIADMK minister K T Rajenthira Bhalaji to render the majority judgment in the case.

He has been nominated as the third judge by Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee.

Justice Kumar will commence hearing the case from July 22.

Originally, a division bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan (since retired) and R Hemalatha had on March 4 this year delivered a split verdict in the case.

Justice Sathyanarayanan had rejected the preliminary investigation report filed by the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti Corruption, giving a clean chit to Bhalaji and ordered registration of a First Information Report (FIR).

Justice Hemalatha held that there was no need to register the FIR and conduct an investigation when the state government had already accepted DVAC's preliminary report and dropped all further proceedings in the matter.

When the matter was listed for Friday, Bhalaji's senior counsel explained the case to Justice Nirmal Kumar and the various interim orders passed by the bench in the past.

Finally, the judge decided to begin hearing the case in detail from July 22.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)