Anna College sexual assault case: SC stays motion towards TN police over FIR leak
The Supreme Court docket on Monday stayed the Madras excessive court docket’s course to the Tamil Nadu police for initiating departmental inquiry into the leak of a primary data report (FIR) associated to the sexual assault of a second-year engineering scholar on the Anna College campus in Chennai. The FIR leak, which disclosed delicate private particulars of the sufferer, had been a focus of the excessive court docket’s important remarks towards the police in its December 28 order.
A bench comprising justices BV Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma additionally stayed the excessive court docket’s antagonistic observations towards the state police. Nevertheless, the bench clarified that the particular investigation workforce (SIT), constituted by the excessive court docket to probe the case, would proceed its investigation.
The court docket handed the interim order whereas issuing discover on the Tamil Nadu authorities’s petition searching for the expunction of particular paragraphs of the excessive court docket’s order that held the police accountable for lapses within the case.
Senior advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Sidharth Luthra, showing for the state, argued that the FIR leak was not the results of police misconduct however a technical glitch within the Crime and Legal Monitoring Community and Techniques (CCTNS). Rohatgi defined that whereas the CCTNS system had mechanisms to dam private particulars of victims, a migration to newer prison codes induced the unintended leak.
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The counsel additional emphasised that the state had promptly acted by requesting CCTNS to dam all entry to the leaked FIR and initiating an FIR towards unknown individuals liable for the breach. Luthra added that every one potential obtain hyperlinks to the leaked FIR had been blocked to stop additional dissemination.
Whereas defending the police, the state clarified that it was not opposing the structure of the SIT and totally supported its mandate to research the sexual assault case.
Justice Nagarathna acknowledged the trauma induced to the sufferer because of the leak, stating that such lapses, regardless of the explanations, had inflicted “secondary trauma” on her and her household, even because the bench determined to remain the excessive court docket’s particular instructions regarding police accountability till additional hearings.
The case had earlier drawn sharp criticism from the Madras excessive court docket in its December 28 order, which highlighted lapses by the police and Anna College in dealing with the case. The excessive court docket had directed the formation of an SIT comprising ladies IPS officers to research the incident and ordered the state to pay an interim compensation of ₹25 lakh to the sufferer, recoverable from these discovered responsible of dereliction of obligation.
The court docket additionally condemned the police commissioner for holding a press convention on the case with out prior authorities approval. The bench remarked that this was a violation of service guidelines and directed the state to contemplate acceptable motion towards the police commissioner.
In its order, the excessive court docket had additionally expressed severe concern over the insensitive wording of the FIR, which it mentioned perpetuated victim-blaming and berated the police for portraying the sufferer’s actions as contributing to the assault, as an alternative of providing her assist and counselling.
