NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has stayed further proceedings against Minister Antony Raju in the evidence tampering case. The High Court quashed the previous proceedings in the trial court citing technical errors and directed the High Court Registrar to start fresh proceedings. This order of the single bench was stayed by the bench consisting of Justices C T Ravikumar and Sanjay Kumar. The stay is until the final decision on the appeal filed by Antony Raju. The Supreme Court also ordered to send a notice to the state government and was asked to reply within six weeks.

At the same time, the court also directed to send a notice on the petition filed by M R Ajayan from Ernakulam against Antony Raju. When Antony Raju's lawyer informed that Ajayan, who is not related to the case, cannot file a petition, the court replied that the matter would be looked into later. Petitioner Ajayan requested that the case should not be closed citing technical reasons as the case involves serious offences related to administration of justice. The petitions will be heard again on September 11.

In 1990, when Anthony Raju was a lawyer, it was alleged that he had tampered with the evidence in a drug case against Australian citizen Andrew Salvatore. when the FIR was registered in 1994, Antony Raju's name was not there. The case was dropped in 2002. However, Antony Raju pointed out in the petition filed in the Supreme Court that a charge sheet was filed against him in March 2006 when he was about to contest the elections.