CHENNAI: The Madras High Court on Tuesday set aside the order of the Principal District and Sessions Judge (PDJ) in Kancheepuram remanding DSP Shankar Ganesh for failing to take appropriate action in an SC/ST case.
The court ordered the registrar of the high court’s vigilance wing to hold an inquiry into the matter and submit a report by September 23. It also ordered the DSP to be set at liberty immediately.
It also quashed the externment order passed on September 4 against police head constable Lokeswaran Ravi, who had served as the personal security officer (PSO) to the district judge. The orders were passed by Justice N Sathish Kumar on urgent petitions filed by the Kancheepuram SP, DSP Shankar Ganesh and PSO Ravi seeking to quash the PDJ’s suo motu orders to remand the DSP and externment of Ravi.
“While taking any action or cognisance against a public servant under Section 4 of the SC/ST Act, unless there is a definite administrative recommendation or a positive finding of negligence under the SC/ST Act, the proceedings cannot be automatically initiated as a matter of right,” the judge observed.
Citing a Supreme Court order on the issue, he said to set in motion the penal proceedings or even to take cognizance under Section 4 of the SC/ST Act, the recommendation of the administrative inquiry is a sine qua non. Therefore, merely because the DSP or other police officials have not immediately implemented some directions issued by the PDJ in the name of externment, it cannot be said that the DSP or other officials committed an offence under Section 4(2) of the SC/ST Act.
During the hearing, additional public prosecutor KMD Muhilan, representing the DSP, submitted that the PDJ had acted with personal motive after Ravi was removed as his PSO on the latter’s request. To take revenge, the PDJ directed the Walajabad police to register FIR under SC/ST Act against Ravi’s father-in-law Sivakumar who runs a bakery where an altercation broke out between them and Murugan, whose wife preferred the complaint under SC/ST Act, he told the court. He added that FIRs were filed under coercion despite the matter being compromised between parties.
The judge observed that an order of externment under Section 10 of SC/ST Act, there must be either a complaint or a police report and only on satisfaction of either of these, the special court can pass an externment order. The judge held the externment order passed against the PSO and other accused as “totally unwarranted”.
