CBI chargesheets 32 lawyers for Madras HC clash

The Central Bureau of Investigation has filed a chargesheet against four police personnel and 32 advocates in a city court and recommended departmental action against 22 policemen in the lawyers-police clash in the Madras High Court complex in February last year.

The chargesheet was filed on Tuesday in the court of Additional Chief Metropolitant Magistrate in a sealed cover. Official sources said the CBI has made no reference to the role of four senior police personnel, including then Chennai Police Commissioner K Radhakrishnan, as their appeal against indictment by the high court is pending in the Supreme Court. They said the agency has chargesheeted 32 advocates in one of

the bloodiest clashes that left a judge, scores of lawyers and police personnel besides journalists injured.

The CBI has also recommended departmental action against 22 police personnel, the sources added. On October 29, a specially constituted bench, hearing a batch of petitions by advocates and police, had held Radhakrishnan, then A DCP (Law and Order) A K Viswanathan, then Joint Commissioner (North) Ramasubramani and then DCP Flower Bazaar police station Prem Anand Sinha, responsible for the violent incidents and ordered their suspension. The Tamil Nadu Government had challenged the order in the Supreme Court. The CBI had taken up investigation into the clash after a directive from the High Court.