CHENNAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has directed the State government to pay within six weeks, a compensation of `10 lakh to the family members of a person, who died due to torture while in police custody at Melur in 2010.
The respondents 9 to 11 -- B Krishnamurthy, Vijayabaskar and R Balaji, all attached to Melur police station -- are joint tort-feasors in the entire episode and hence, it would be open to the Public Secretary to recover the said compensation from the trio, Justice MS Ramesh said.
The judge was allowing a writ petition from Gayathri and her two minor children seeking `10 lakh compensation and criminal action against the trio, on March 24 last.
The incident occurred in 2010 and even after a lapse of seven years, it is now being submitted that the government is still in the process of initiating departmental proceedings against the three police personnel.
Though they had made several averments justifying the death of Nambu alias Ramesh by saying that the death was not due to police action, they have not controverted the lapses on their part as pointed out by the ADGP, CBCID to the State DGP, the judge said.
When that being the case, the court has no other option but conclude that the report of the ADGP, CB CID, has to be taken as true and that the deceased was kept in illegal custody and that he had taken treatment owing to the ill treatment of the police officials and later died, the judge said and issued the directive.
Municipal Admn Secy asked to pay E50K for disobedience
The Madras High Court has imposed costs of `50,000 on K Phanindra Reddy, Secretary, Municipal Administration, for disobeying its earlier order.
Directing Reddy to pay the sum to the Tamil Nadu Legal Services Authority within four weeks, Justice Raja said that it is the duty of the court to uphold and maintain its dignity, the judge said.
Contempt proceedings were initiated by one Lawrence against whom a charge memo was issued on July 28, 2008. Since no action was taken till 2014, during which time Lawrence lost his promotion opportunities, he moved the High Court. A second inquiry was initiated on same charges in violation of rules. It, predictably, held him guilty of most of the charges. It was then that the High Court issued statutory contempt notice against Reddy.
Taking note of the fact that the officer had at last appeared in court after the matter was adjourned several times and contempt notice was issued for having ‘wasted the precious time’ of the court for about a year and he tendered an unconditional apology only on March 10 last, the judge imposed the costs on him.