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Madras HC says custodial deaths reflect police ‘madness’
The chief justice also said that he had received a letter requesting him to take up suo motu the custodial death of V Vignesh in May at Chennai’s Secretariat police station case, but he did not do so as chief minister M K Stalin had ordered a probe against the police personnel involved in the matter.
Chennai: The Madras high court on Friday took a stern view of the police with respect to custodial deaths saying that it reflected the “madness” of the police department.
The first bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice N Mala said that the state’s Police Complaints Committee must be headed by a retired judge of the high court and wondered as to what was the difficulty in constituting the panel as stipulated by the Supreme Court. The case pertains to PILs from A G Mourya, a retired police officer, and A Saravanan Dakshinamurthy. Their senior counsel Satish Parasaran, according to agencies, stated that Tamil Nadu had recorded a very high number of custodial death cases but the conviction rate was very poor.
To put an end to police “madness”, a body like the Police Complaints Authority must be headed by independent retired judges, the bench added. “Are you afraid of making the authority headed by a retired judge of the high court,” the bench asked, according to agencies.
The chief justice also said in the court that he had received a letter requesting him to take up suo motu the custodial death of V Vignesh in May at Chennai’s Secretariat police station case, but he did not do so as chief minister M K Stalin had ordered a probe against the police personnel involved in the matter. The police officers have also been suspended. After expressing its hope that the state government would take appropriate action to make the complaints committee headed by retired judges, the bench adjourned the matter till June 20.
With inputs from agencies
