The Madras High Court recently took a dim view of the honesty of the State’s police, and observed that it was time to sensitise officials and eradicate corrupt ones [S Vasanthi v M Baggiyalakshmi].
Justice P Velmurugan opined,
“Unfortunately, as on date, the police department is running with 90% of the corruptive officers as well as the officers not having adequate capacity to do the investigation and only 10% of the officers are honest and abled officers. The 10% of officials alone cannot do all the investigation. Therefore, it is right time to sensitize the officials and find out to eradicate corruptive officers and give adequate training to the officers those who are not corruptive but they are incapacity to do investigation.”
These biting remarks came from the single-judge while disposing of a contempt petition filed against an investigating officer for wilfully disobeying the High Court’s orders.
Brief Facts
The petitioner filed a complaint with the police against two men in a case. After completion of investigation, the police closed the case and submitted a chargesheet before the judicial magistrate court who passed certain directions. The order of the magistrate was challenged by the petitioner before the High Court, which ordered the police to conduct a fresh investigation.
Following the order of the Court, the investigating officer completed another probe and closed the complaint as “mistake of fact” stating that the case was civil in nature. The petitioner then filed a contempt petition claiming that the police did not conduct the investigation in a fair manner and thus disobeyed the order of the Court.
Counsel appearing for the respondent, however, argued that after investigation, it was found that there was no prima facie evidence and therefore, the case was closed. The officer tendered an unconditional apology for any wrongdoing on her part.
On going through the records, the Court concluded that there had not been wilful disobedience on the police’s part. However, the judge did not find the capacity of the investigating officer up to the mark and stated, “within her capacity she has investigated the case, the incapacity of the investigation officer cannot be treated as wilfully disobey the order of this Court.”
Therefore, the contempt petition was closed. Nevertheless, the petitioner was given the liberty to take action against the police officer for her incapacity as per law, and work out a remedy before the magistrate.
Senior Advocate R Singaravelan and Advocate VL Akshai Sajin Kumar appeared for the petitioner. The respondent was represented by Government Advocate S Sugendran.
Read Order here:
