Anna University sexual assault case: Madras HC pulls up Tamil Nadu police’s SIT for harassing journalists

The HC ordered the SIT to return the seized electronic devices while directing the journalists to cooperate with the investigations.
Madras HC
Madras HC (File photo | EPS)
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CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday restrained the Tamil Nadu police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT) from harassing journalists by issuing repeated summons, grilling them with unnecessary questions about their families and seizing their electronic devices — including mobile phones — in connection with the case over the leaking of the FIR in the sexual assault of a student inside the Anna University campus.

The HC ordered the SIT to return the seized electronic devices while directing the journalists to cooperate with the investigations. The court also questioned why the SIT has not examined the police officers responsible for registering the FIR and uploading it to the official website.

Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan passed the orders while hearing a batch of petitions filed by the affected journalists, belonging to mainstream television channels and a newspaper.

The judge posed a series of questions to the government advocate K M D Muhilan who represented the SIT. “How many people have you examined other than the journalists? Have you examined the officer who authored the FIR and uploaded it to the website,” he asked, stating that the first person to be examined must be the Station House Officer who registered the FIR.

“Before examining others, why are you harassing the journalists,” the judge questioned.

Madras HC
Chennai Press Club stage protest against SIT intimidating reporters covering Anna University rape case

‘Devices seized sans proper memos’

Pointing out that only police personnel can upload the FIR to the website, Justice Ilanthiraiyan said there is no question of forwarding the document when it was available in the public domain.

He asked whether the media published news revealing the identity of the victim, and flayed the SIT for asking details of the journalists’ families, including those of their “forefathers”.

Government advocate Muhilan denied the journalists’ complaints being harassed, stating the SIT had just inquired with them about downloading the FIR and sharing it with others. “We are not trying to curtail the freedom of journalists. We don’t intend to harass and go after them,” he told the court.

He promised the court of sorting out irrelevant questions posed to the journalists — via a questionnaire — and addressing their concerns. The SIT is simply tracking how the FIR went out, Muhilan added.

Advocates M R Jothimanian, K Balu, Vivekanandan, K Ilangovan and C Arunkumar appeared for the petitioners, including Saravanan (Polimer TV), Ramkumar (Jaya TV), Ebanezar (News 7), Senthil (Sun Network) and Srikkanth D (DT Next), and M Haseef (general secretary of the Chennai Press Club).

The counsels submitted that, in the name of inquiry, the SIT summoned the journalists, seized their mobile phones and posed irrelevant questions. “The SIT is terrorising, demoralising and intimidating these journalists who are primarily covering the crime beat in the city and they have been pushed to a situation of frustration,” they said.

They said the electronic devices were seized without following mandatory procedures and seizure memos were not given, throwing the Supreme Court’s order of privacy of data to the winds, and added that the victim’s identity was not revealed by any of these journalists.

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