CHENNAI: Insisting on the need to appoint a retired judge as head of the State Police Complaints Authority, the Madras High Court on Friday said custodial deaths show the madness of police personnel involved.
“Custodial deaths show that police are becoming mad, they beat until a person is dead. It shows the madness of police involved. They organise gangs in the name of police. They involve in land grabbing, rape, custodial deaths... all such acts should be checked for good governance in the State,” the first bench of Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice N Mala observed, and questioned why the State is afraid of having a retired judge as head of the complaints committee.
The bench said the present authority headed by the home secretary is in violation of the directions of the Supreme Court. “We are expecting the State to take a call without waiting for the court’s interference,” the judges added.
However, Advocate General R Shunmugasundaram argued that many States including Punjab, Haryana and Chattisgarh have constituted similar authorities that are not headed by a retired judge. “The home secretary is independent of police who can hear complaints against higher police officials,” the AG said and added that it was not appropriate for the high court to hear the issue as the same is pending before the Supreme Court.
The court was hearing two petitions filed by advocate Saravanan Dakshinamurthy and former IPS officer A G Mourya, who sought State and district-level police complaints authorities to be headed by retired judges and not the home secretary. They wanted the court to declare provisions of the Tamil Nadu Police (Reforms) Act, under which the present police complaints authority was established, as unconstitutional and illegal.
Next hearing on June 24
Counsel for one of the petitioners, senior advocate Satish Parasaran said as per a news report in 2018, Tamil Nadu was number one among southern States in custodial deaths and the conviction rate was zero. The bench, recording the submissions, posted the hearing to June 24 to decide on the validity of the Police Reforms Act.