MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court ordered further investigation into a case over a property damage complaint lodged by a medical college professor who had invited the wrath of some students for disciplinary action over ragging.
It also set aside a 'cryptic' order passed by a judicial magistrate accepting a summary closure of the case by the police in 2024. The Bench ordered the police to find out whether the incident was related to the complainant's anti-ragging inquiry and the consequential disciplinary action taken against some students a week before the incident.
Justice L Victoria Gowri passed the order on a revision petition filed by the assistant professor V Kannan Baba, against the dismissal of his protest petition by Judicial Magistrate I of Tirunelveli on October 28, 2025, over the closure of a complaint lodged before the Tirunelveli High Ground police in 2024. Baba stated that when he was acting as a senior warden of the boy's hostel of the Tirunelveli Medical College, he had assisted the management in taking disciplinary action against some senior students for their ragging activities.
A week after the disciplinary action, when he had gone to drop his friend at the hostel at 1 am on May 15, 2024, some unknown persons allegedly threw a paver block from the hostel terrace, which broke the windshield of his car. Though he lodged a complaint, the police closed the case as 'undetected'. His protest petition against the same, in which he had contended that the investigation was incomplete and the connection between the above two incidents was not probed, was dismissed by the magistrate without stating reasons, prompting him to file the revision petition.
Justice Gowri observed that when a final report is filed by the police stating that a case is 'undetected' or closed as 'mistake of fact', the magistrate is not expected to act as a mere post office. The magistrate should accept the report after issuing notice to the de facto complainant or reject the report and take cognizance if there is commission of an offence or order further investigation if the investigation is found to be incomplete, by treating the protest petition as a complaint, she explained.
"The power to direct further investigation is not an ornamental power. It is intended to ensure that the truth is not sacrificed at the altar of an incomplete investigation," the judge observed and ordered further investigation, adding that the same should be completed, preferably within three months.