CHENNAI: A division bench of the Madras High Court has set aside an order of the Tamil Nadu State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) directing the payment of Rs 2 lakh compensation to Lois Sofia, a Canada-based student who was arrested in 2018 after raising slogans against Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, then state BJP president, on a flight to Thoothukudi.
The SHRC had on March 2, 2022 directed the state government to pay the compensation and recover the amount from the police officers involved in her arrest. It had also observed that a non-bailable section - Section 505(1)(b) of the IPC - was included in the FIR in order to arrest her. Challenging the order, six police officers, including V Ponram, currently serving as Chengalpattu Additional SP, filed petitions before the HC. A division bench of Justices G Jayachandran and Shamim Ahmed, in a recent order, said the police officers could not be faulted for taking a spot decision while maintaining law and order.
Stating that an FIR is not an encyclopaedia and that the truth can be ascertained only during the course of investigation, the bench said the SHRC had “stretched its imagination beyond the facts and records placed before it” in concluding that Section 505(1)(b) of the IPC was included in the FIR at the instance of higher officials.
"Further, the minor discrepancy, even if it is there in documents, is a matter of trial and for the magistrate to decide. It is not for the SHRC to pre-conclude the issue. Ignoring its limits, the commission had conducted a parallel trial. The findings rendered by the commission regarding the merits of the complaint is per se illegal," it stated.
Therefore, we hold the impugned order passed by the SHRC is liable to be quashed, the bench said in the order.