Taking a serious view of the deaths of 129 inmates of the Akshaya Trust destitute home here in a span of 14 months, the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) on Thursday directed the specially appointed Additional Superintendent of Police Shyamala Devi to conduct an inquiry into it. The home was founded by award-winning social worker Naryanan Krishnan.
When the court resumed hearing on a petition seeking a probe into the affairs of the destitute home filed by a functionary of the All India Democratic Women’s Association, advocate commissioner D Geetha and psychologist Rani Chakravarthi submitted their second report. In their report, based on an inspection of the home, the two said that there were no records to explain the cause of the death of such a large number of inmates.
Though all the inmates are presumed to have died of cardiac arrest, the home did not have documents to prove that a cardio pulmonary resuscitation was done. None of the deceased were taken to a hospital. The home did not have a resident medical officer.
According to the report, the home had the addresses of only 128 male inmates. The particulars of female inmates are incomplete. There was a mismatch between the addresses maintained in the records and what was stated by the inmates to the inspecting team.
Passing interim orders Justices V Ramasubramanian and V M Velumani directed Shyamala Devi to enquire into the deaths of the inmates. The bench also instructed the advocate commissioner to take the help of students of Lady Doak College here to analyse the records of the home and to inspect the home again. Further the court restrained three staffs, Saravanan, Vinod and Alex, who were charged with physically abusing the inmates from entering the home.