Chennai: The Madras High Court on Wednesday pulled up a suspended police official asking him whether he would kill a person on the order of his superior and advised the police department to treat women police officers with dignity so that the public will have faith in the force, observed Justice Velmurugan while hearing the alleged sexual harassment case against a suspended IPS officer.
In a plea filed by suspended Superintendent of Police D Kannan sought to discharge him in a case in which a woman IPS officer filed a sexual harassment case against special DGP. In his petition, Kannan said that he was a Chengalpattu Superintendent of Police and he was carrying out the instruction given by suspended special DGP Rajesh Das that he had stopped her car which was proceeding to Chennai.
Subsequently, the state government had set up a six-member inquiry committee (Visaka committee) led by an additional chief secretary to probe the allegation that was put forth by the woman officer. The committee also submitted its report to the government, while CB-CID officials too filed the complaint and they were probing the matter.
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Under such circumstances, suspended Chengalpattu SP Kannan already filed a plea seeking to discharge him from this case in the court and the hearing came up before Justice Velmurugan. Meanwhile, Kannan contended that he had stopped the woman police officer's car based on the instruction from DGP Das.
Intervening, Justice Velmurugan advised that women police officers should be treated with dignity in the department. Further, he questioned the suspended official, "if a higher official asked his low-rung officers to kill a person, will you do it"?. Moreover, how will the public respect the police department, if higher officials face such allegations. Later, the petitioner sought to withdraw his petition and the plea was dismissed.
Earlier Suspended DGP Das had moved the Madras High Court challenging the inquiry conducted against him by an Internal Complaints Committee on a complaint of sexual harassment lodged by a woman police officer. In his complaint, Das accused a member of the ICC of being biased against him. However, the committee submitted its report in April this year. The Court also directed the state government to respond to the petition.
Meanwhile, the suspended DGP has challenged the jurisdiction of the Viluppuram chief judicial magistrate due to acceptance of the final report filed by CB-CID in the Madras High Court. The DGP also sought suspension of proceedings of the ongoing case in Viluppuram district court. Moreover, he mentioned in the complaint that the case should be transferred to Chengalpattu or Kallakurichi. However, Justice Velmurugan reserved the judgement without mentioning the date.
