CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Friday upheld a 2011 trial court order convicting over 200 forest, revenue and police department officials for raping tribal women and ransacking tribal habitations at Vachathi village in Dharmapuri district during a raid for smuggled sandalwood in 1992.
Justice P Velmurugan also ordered the state to pay Rs 10 lakh as compensation to each of the 18 rape victims, give suitable government jobs to them or their family members, and take livelihood enhancement measures. The court also rapped the then-state government (led by AIADMK) for failing to act on complaints of brutality and shielding errant officials. Dismissing the appeals filed by officials, the HC said “The prosecution has proved the charges through witnesses and documents.”
Faulting the then Dharmapuri collector and district forest officer for not acting on complaints, the judge said 50% of the Rs 10 lakh to be paid to each of the victims should be recovered from the officials convicted for the rape of the 18 tribals, including a 13-year-old minor and an eight-month pregnant woman. The appeals were filed by 215 of 269 officials against a 2011 order of the Dharmapuri sessions court that convicted them. The remaining accused died during the trial.
Tribal villagers targeted to safeguard officials, says court
The judge asked the state to report back about welfare measures taken to improve the livelihood and standard of living of Vachathi villagers and directed the government to take action against the then collector, SP and district forest officer. Referring to the fact that the then state government had not taken any action on the matter and the FIR was registered only in 1995 after the HC ordered a CBI probe, the judge said, “The authorities have not heard the voice of the innocent people and even the then government has not paid any attention.
To safeguard officials, no action was taken. Only innocent villagers were targeted.” Justice Velmurugan negated the contentions of the appellants about false charge, absence of prior sanction from the government to prosecute them, and delay in identifying the accused. “There are no materials to show only smugglers were arrested and action was taken only against them.
All the materials show that the people against whom the officials had registered cases were all innocent villagers,” the judge said. Lashing out at the forest department for failing to take effective steps to check sandalwood smuggling despite local people sharing names of smugglers, the judge said, “Unfortunately, the then government failed to protect the tribal women and only safeguarded the errant officials. It also failed to find out the real smugglers.”
Referring to the contention of lack of prior sanction for prosecuting officials, the judge said unlawful assembly, barging into homes, picking up 18 women and their subsequent rape do not fall under official duty. One of the victims, who was eight months pregnant at that time, had also deposed that she was attacked and raped. Therefore, the contention of the appellants’ counsel that they had foisted a false case against officials to escape from the sandalwood case is not acceptable, he said.
