NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the Madras High Court’s order directing Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to launch a fresh investigation into the assets of police and revenue personnel accused in the 2018 Thoothukudi police firing at the anti-Sterlite protestors case. As many as 13 protestors were killed and 33 personnel were injured in the firing.
A bench of the apex court, led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) DY Chandrachud, stayed the HC order passed on July 29, which had also granted three months time for the DVAC to hold a ‘fair and transparent’ investigation into the assets of the 21 accused officers.
A two-judge bench of the Madras HC, led by Justice SS Sundar and N Senthilkumar, had passed the interim orders while hearing a petition filed by Henri Tiphagne, the executive director of People’s Watch.The bench had also asked the department secretaries concerned and the DGP to ‘cooperate’ with the DVAC director in the probe to find out the assets acquired by the government officials named in the Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission report.
During the hearing, senior lawyer Kapil Sibal, appearing for three police officers, including S Chandran and Shailesh Kumar Yadav, told the apex court that they couldn’t snowball just because there is a change in the government.
“There are NHRC findings that the protestors were attacking, which is in our favour. But now, there is a direction to conduct a fresh probe by local police; this was earlier done by the CBI,” Sibal argued. The HC in its order had noted, “The police will go to any extent. We haven’t heard of the protestors attacking them.”