HC orders CBI probe into Tuticorin police firing

The Madras high court on Tuesday transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation the probe into the police firing in Tuticorin district during the anti-Sterlite protests that claimed 13 lives and directed the central agency to conclude the investigation within four months.

It also quashed an order detaining six members of the 'Makkal Adhikaram,' a Left outfit accused of inciting violence in the district. Six of them were arrested under the National Security Act.

Transferring the case from Tamil Nadu Crime Branch-Crime Investigation Department police, the court ordered the director of the CBI to set up a special team for investigation which shall be concluded within four months.

Pointing to several lapses, the court posed a series of questions, including how self-loading rifles found their way out of the armoury and came to be used in the firing, how snipers were perched atop vehicles and how persons came to be shot in the face and chest.

"These are the questions that cry for an answer," the court said in its order.

A division bench of Justices C T Selvam and Basheer Ahmed passed the order on a batch of petitions related to the police firing on May 22 when the protest demanding closure of the copper plant of Sterlite, a unit of Vedanta group, over pollution concern, turned violent.

In the police firing, 13 people were killed on May 22 and 23. The deaths drew widespread condemnation by opposition political parties, led by the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, in the state.

The petitions which sought different reliefs, including registration of murder case against the police officials for allegedly deploying snipers, probe by a high court judge and the CBI, were heard at the Madurai Bench of the court and the order was delivered at the principal seat in Chennai on Tuesday.

"It can hardly be expected that any investigation either into the wrong doings of the protesters or of the police or administration would inspire confidence if entrusted to agencies of this state," the bench said.

"Caesar's wife must be above suspicion and not only must justice be done it must also be seen to be done," it said.

The bench said the state government was liable to answer certain questions over the firing.

It noted that the absence of the district collector was rather unusual in the face of definite input of anti-social elements infiltrating the 100th day protest against Sterlite on May 22, which prompted promulgation of ban orders under Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure in the area.

Also, the bench said police firing was ordered by an official who was not a jurisdictional executive magistrate and admittedly on his assuming powers which he did not possess.

The first information report stated that all actions required of the executive magistrate prior to passing the firing order were done, not by the magistrate, but by police officials, the bench said.

Noting that it was no secret that the first bench (of the court headed by the Chief Justice) had earlier questioned why the investigation should not be handed over to the CBI, the judges said: "We on independent consideration and for reasons aforesaid would affirm such opinion."

It will be duty of the CBI to get to the bottom of things and file such charge sheet or charge sheets as investigation reveals and necessitates.

The court also said even if the police firing was not premeditated, the officials had not followed the Police Standing Order (which lays down an elaborate step-by-step procedure to disperse unlawful assemblies).

The standing order by itself affords no assurance against subsequent occurrences of similar nature, the bench said.

"We direct the Director General of Police to form a committee towards recasting and modifying the Police Standing Order 703 so as to meet future contingencies," it said.

International standards for the use of force and fire arms as per the United Nations Guidelines as also other material or contemporary literature may usefully be referred to in modifying the standing order.