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Madras HC seeks DVAC report into Sterlite firing in Thoothukudi
The Madras high court on Monday ordered the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to investigate the assets of police and revenue personnel involved in the 2018 Thoothukudi firing.
The Madras high court on Monday ordered the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to investigate the assets of police and revenue personnel involved in the 2018 Thoothukudi firing.
The court observed that police officers who fired at anti-sterlite protestors in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi in 2018 should be made to “feel the pinch”. The court granted DVAC three months to submit their report on the investigation.
On the 100th day of the demonstrations against the Vedanta-owned Sterlite Copper on May 22, 2018, police opened fire after the protests turned violent. The resulting firing led to the deaths of 13 people.
A bench of justices SS Sundar and N Senthil Kumar were hearing the petition filed by Henry Tiphange in 2021, seeking to reopen the probe into the case by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The central body which was probing the case suo-moto had abruptly closed it on October 25, 2018.
“Monetary aid will not compensate (for) the loss of human lives,” the court said in its orders. “One individual was able to do all these things. It should not recur. That is why we have taken up this mission.”
“The court said that while everyone usually seeks a CBI probe because it is an independent agency, in this case, the CBI did not function independently,” said Tiphange.
In the previous hearing on July 15, the court directed the DVAC to investigate the assets of 21 officers including IPS and IAS officers who were also included as respondent parties before the court in the present case. “All these things happened because one particular industrialist wanted it to happen,” the court said on July 15. “You (police and district authorities) all acted on his behest. He wanted to teach the people a lesson and you facilitated it. Any place where 100, 200, or, 500 people gather routinely, should they now start doing so with fear that they might lose their lives any day? Can the court shut its eyes to this?” the Court said.
The court had said that they suspect that some of the police officials let the firing happen out of an agenda and so DVAC must investigate if they received monetary gains not just in their name but also in the names of their wives, close relatives to be collected and produced before the Court.
A day after the incident, the then AIADMK government formed the justice (retired) Aruna Jagadeesan committee to probe the case. Her report was tabled in the Assembly in October 2022 under the DMK government contending that there has been an instance of lethargy and indifference from former chief minister Edappadi Palaniswami (EPS) since he didn’t act on an information conveyed to him by the then Intelligence Officer K N Santhiyamurthy to diffuse the situation.
