Madras HC orders registration of murder case against police

The Madras High Court has directed the CB-CID to register a murder case against certain police officers attached to ICF police station here and proceed against them in accordance with law and file the final report within eight weeks.

Justice G K Ilanthiraiyan, who gave the direction, also directed the state government to pay an interim compensation of 5 lakh to the dependents of the deceased within four weeks. This shall be recovered from the accused persons in the manner known to law, the judge added.

The judge was allowing a writ petition from S Poongulali, mother of the victim Nithyaraj (22), a member of ‘Friends of Police’ attached to Ayanavaram police station here, recently. The petitioner prayed for a direction to the government to register a case under Section 302 of IPC (murder) against P Ramalingam, inspector of ICF police station and all other personnel responsible for the death of her son and to hand over the investigation to CBI and to award appropriate compensation.

According to the mother, her son was picked up on January 11, 2012 by the ICF police personnel and produced before the magistrate on January 14, who remanded him to judicial custody till January 28. He was taken to jail hospital following complaint of pain in his shoulder and thereafter was referred to the Government Royapettah Hospital. When he was taken to the Royapettah hospital again on January 16, it was reported that he died on the way, due to the injuries he had sustained while attempting to escape. A case was registered as ‘suspicious death’ alone. Hence, the present petition.

After going through the post-mortem report and the opinion of an expert doctor, the judge came to the conclusion that it was a clear case of murder. The deceased was tortured and subjected to third degree treatment due to which he died. The Supreme Court had repeatedly held that when the death takes place inside the police station, the accused persons should be punished for the offence under Section 302 of IPC.