Shivani Thakur
Published on: June 11, 2022, at 15:40 IST
The Madras High Court mandated that the Police Complaints Panel must be led by a former High Court Judge.
The Bench of Chief Justice M N Bhandari and Justice N Mala stated that appointing a Police Officer and a Bureaucrat as the heads of the Panel dealing with complaints against Police Officers would be futile.
“Are you afraid of making the authority headed by a Retired Judge of the High Court?” the Bench said.
The State-level Committee has been formed, according to Advocate-General R Shanmugasundaram, with the Home Secretary as its Chairman and the DGP and others as members. The relevant Collectors and SPs would lead the District-level panels.
“The custodial deaths reflected the ‘madness’ of the Police personnel”, the Bench said.
“To put an end to this, a body like the Police Complaints Authority must be headed by independent Retired Judges”, the Bench added.
The Chief Justice also stated in the Open Court that he had received a letter requesting him to take up the death of Vignesh at the Secretariat Police Station case, but did not do so as Chief Minister MK Stalin himself had ordered a probe against the Police personnel involved in the matter.
The State Government is expected to take appropriate action to head the Complaint Panel by Retired Judges, the Bench adjourned the matter till June 20.