HC tells CBI to base its inquiry on court's order and not on police FIR

CHENNAI, 3 Mar 2009 : Orally cautioning the Tamil Nadu government against "playing tricks with the court," the Madras high court on Monday said that the CBI should probe the entire gamut of the February 19 violence on court campus, and not just the police version of the incidents. Making it very clear that a full bench order, delivered during the February 19 violence, alone should be the first information report (FIR) for the CBI to probe, the bench said a "subsequent FIR" registered by the state police should not be acted upon by the central agency. Pointing out that the February 19 order, dictated in the presence of the chief secretary, home secretary, director-general of police and the commissioner of police at 6.40 pm that day, had the complete sequence of events including the fire at the police station, the judges said the FIR registered by the state police had a different story to narrate. "The factual aspects noticed by the High Court have been diluted," the acting chief justice S J Mukhopadhaya observed, adding, "we do not want somebody to dilute the facts noticed by the court." Besides the ACJ, the full bench comprised Justice V Dhanapalan and Justice K Chandru. On February 19 evening, when the violence was still raging outside, the full bench narrated the whole sequence of events in its order and directed the state government to forward a copy of the order to the Centre for CBI probe. The bench had recorded allegations and counter-allegations by advocates and police officials. However, the state government, instead of registering an FIR on the basis of the court order, made a sub-inspector of police to lodge a complaint and forwarded it to the Centre and got it notified for a CBI probe. During arguments on Monday, the acting chief justice said there was no mention about allegations of police excesses in the police FIR, and told the senior public prosecutor for CBI Cases N Chandrasekaran, "the CBI has to investigate whether there were any police excesses." The order said: "By order dated 19.02.2009, we directed the respondents (authorities) to adhere to their undertaking given before this court with clear stipulation that on failure it will be treated to be a violation of the court's order. Therefore, prima facie, we are of the view that the respondents/authorities of the state have violated the court's order." The court then impleaded the Madras Bar Association (MA), Madras High Court Advocates Association (MHAA), Women Lawyers' Association, Law Association and the Tamil Nadu Advocates Association as parties to the proceedings. The matter was adjourned to March 11 for further proceedings.

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