Declining standard of police probe concerns Madras High Court
CHENNAI: Holding that the standard of police investigation has drastically come down, as is evident from the number of acquittals from serious offences, the Madras High Court has called for details relating to classification of offences on the basis of punishment, the number of FIRs registered and the number of cases where multiple FIRs were registered against an accused, upto December 31, 2018 district-wise.
Justice Anand Venkatesh gave the direction while granting bail to an accused, who has suffered incarceration for more than 264 days and the complainant was unable to identify the accused in the delayed process. Even in this case, the respondent police have not taken any steps to conduct identification parade and therefore, the whole trial has now become pointless, the court said.
The cases strengthen the apprehension raised by this court that the cases being registered for the purpose of statistics, the judge said.
No interim order against NGO in min’s plea
Chennai: Without passing any interim order on a civil suit from Minister for Municipal Administration S P Velumani against Arappor Iyakkam, an NGO, Justice R Subramanian of the Madras High Court tagged the matter with similar cases against the Iyakkam and posted the matter for further hearing on March 8.
In his suit, Velumani prayed for a direction to the Iyakkam, by its convenor Jayaram Venkatesan, to pay `1 crore towards damages allegedly for spreading false news against him through media. In the suit, the minister said Venkatesan was spreading false news against him for the past one year. Velumani said he filed a writ petition contending that the allegations are made to tarnishing his name. The Iyakkam had also filed a petition fo a probe by a special DVAC team.