NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has stayed the Madras High Court's order directing Tamil Nadu's Directorate of Vigilance & Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to probe the assets of police and revenue officials involved in the 2018 Thoothukudi Sterlite police firing in the state, in which 13 protesters were killed and 33 personnel were injured.
A bench of Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra suspended the High Court's order, upon hearing senior advocate Kapil Sibal for the police officials, contending the direction was unwarranted in view of the clean chit given by the CBI and NHRC's findings in their favour.
"Till the next date of listing, the impugned order dated 15 July 2024 passed by the High Court of Madras in WP (MD) No 10526 of 2021, shall remain stayed," the apex court said.
The court issued notice on a petition filed by S Chandran and others and scheduled the matter for consideration on August 27.
The Madras High Court had granted three months time for the state's DVAC to hold a 'fair and transparent' investigation into the assets of these 21 officers.
The HC had ordered a probe by the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) into the assets of 21 officials named in the Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission’s report, which investigated the 2018 Thoothukudi firing and concluded that there were police excesses.
It had made the order while hearing a petition filed by human rights activist Henry Tiphagne, who sought a directive for the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to reopen the case. The central body which was probing the case suo-moto had closed it in October 2018.
The HC bench had also asked the concerned department secretaries and the DGP to provide "cooperation" to the director of DVAC to hold "fair, transparent and independent" inquiry to find out the assets acquired by the Police and the Revenue department officers named in the Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission report and their family members.
During the hearing, Sibal said that the protests were going on for 99 days, after 100th day this happened.
The HC in its order had noted that the people were targeted. "We are unable to digest these kind of things happen. The police will go to any extent. We haven't heard of this," the HC had said.
Criticising the attitude of compensating loss of lives with money and then closing the case, HC had asked, "Then what justice is there (for the victims)?"
The HC also slammed Sterlite Copper for running without consent (of the govt authorities concerned) from 2009 to 2014, causing pollution.
"One individual is capable of directly controlling every system, which is bad to the society and the common people. This is what we are trying to do away with," the HC said.
The Thoothukudi firing occurred in May 2018, when residents of the town gathered to peacefully protest the continued operation of the Sterlite Copper plant, which they alleged was causing severe environmental and health hazards.
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