TIRUNELVELI: State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) member V Kannadasan on Tuesday recommended that the state government pay a total of Rs 1 lakh to a complainant and his nephew within a month by recovering the amount from a sub-inspector of police for foisting a case against the former. The commission also recommended that departmental action be taken against the policeman.
T Murugesan, a farmer, had filed the complaint against SI S Govindaraj, who was attached to the Pavoorchatram police station in Tenkasi district in 2023. According to the complaint, Murugesan had leased a 1.27-acre land from one K Karthikai. In 2023, the landowner and her husband, Kathiravan, asked Murugesan to vacate, and they attempted to destroy the jasmine plants he had cultivated. When Murugesan lodged a complaint with the Pavoorchatram police, Govindaraj refused to register a case and threatened Murugesan to vacate, allegedly supporting the landowner.
A few months later, in a separate incident when Murugesan and his nephew Thangaselvan were attacked by a different person, Govindaraj forced the two to get discharged from the hospital and registered a case against them, after obtaining a complaint from the assailant, stated the complaint.
Kannadasan said, "Considering the oral and documentary evidence and the arguments of both parties, it has been established that Govindaraj intervened in a civil dispute and acted against Murugesan. The SI also failed to register a case against the assailant who had injured the complainant and his nephew, but registered a case against the victims. Therefore, this commission is of the considered view that the action of the SI was not in accordance with law and that he had violated the human rights of Murugesan and Thangaselvan."