CHENNAI: The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday submitted the Internal Complaints Committee’s (ICC) report, on the probe into the sexual harassment complaints made by an IPS officer against the suspended Special DGP, in a sealed cover at the Madras High Court.
Advocate General (AG) R Shanmugasundaram submitted the report before Justice V Parthiban. The judge posted the matter to December 17. The submission of the ICC report copy was made following an order issued by Justice C Saravanan on October 22 in this regard. He ordered the status quo be maintained.
The suspended Special DGP had approached the court praying for orders to the government to furnish him a copy of the ICC report. Accusing the ICC of bias of not following due process of the relevant law, he sought the court to quash the proceedings of the ICC and order fresh proceedings. He also stated that his request for removing DGP Seema Agrawal, whom the complainant had met before lodging the complaint, from the committee was not heeded.
Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) and Head of the Police Force filed a counter-affidavit through Ara. Arularasu, Assistant Inspector General (AIG) of Police (Law and Order), before the court seeking the dismissal of a writ petition filed by the suspended officer with costs. The counter-affidavit rebuffed the charge of the suspended DGP that the sexual harassment complaint was made with the objective of destroying his career.
As soon as the IPS officer submitted the sexual harassment complaint it was forwarded to the government with a request to constitute an ICC with officers of appropriate seniority because Seema Agrawal, then Additional DGP, already heading the committee, was lower in rank to the suspended officer. Subsequently, the Government constituted the ICC with Jayashree Raghunandan, Additional Chief Secretary, Planning and Development, heading it.
Moreover, the DGP had forwarded another complaint from the IPS officer, who demanded registration of an FIR, to the DGP of Crime Branch-CID (CB-CID) whose Villupuram unit filed the FIR and a woman SP was posted for investigation. The counter-affidavit further stated that DGP had just been served the charge memo which was issued by the government.
Counter affidavit
TN DGP has filed a counter-affidavit rebuffing the charge of the suspended officer that the sexual harassment complaint was made with the objective of destroying his career