Chennai: Justice Anand Venkatesh of Madras High Court on Friday lashed out at the police for detaining his vehicle by halting traffic on the Adyar stretch during Chief Minister MK Stalin's visit to the memorial of thespian Sivaji Ganesan to participate in the late legendary actor's 96th birth anniversary celebration. Police personnel on security duty, refused to allow him to proceed to the Court till the departure of the Chief Minister, in the morning.
There was no traffic diversion in view of the programme and not only the judge, but office goers were also made to wait and put to hardship as the police have placed barricades preventing vehicular movement on either side. Due to the traffic jam, the Judge was late to the Court by close to half an hour. In the absence of route diversion, vehicles continued to stall on the busy road.
According to sources, the Personal Security Officer (PSO) of the Judge had contacted the police control room informing that the Judge caught in the traffic had to reach the High Court. His request for creating some way to move ahead went unheeded, the sources added.
On resuming hearing in the Court, the Judge pulled up Home Secretary SK Prabhakar, who appeared on video conferencing questioning him on what basis he was detained for 25 minutes on the road. Besides being a public servant, a Judge of the High Court holds a Constitutional office and preventing him from performing his duties amounted to contempt, he said and took the official to task with a barrage of questions.
Expressing regret for the incident, Prabhakar assured that such incidents would never recur. The Home Secretary further submitted that he had summoned the City Police Commissioner and sought an explanation.
At this, the Judge asked whether the police would stop the Chief Minister like this and directed that Judges should be extended the same protocol extended to the political executive. “Though this is a fit case for contempt, proceedings are not initiated in the hope that in future this would never happen,” the Judge said.
Earlier, when late Jayalalithaa was the Chief Minister traffic used to be halted hours before her convoy would pass. And it continued when Edappadi K Palaniswami (EPS) was the Chief Minister, who had the same security paraphernalia as that of Jayalalithaa.
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