Noting that sufficient time has not passed for judicial intervention on the issue of damage to public property during the funeral procession taken out by cadres of Hindu Munnani in Coimbatore on September 23, the Madras High Court has said that an incident of such a nature can be attended to by the State government.
The First Bench of Chief Justice S.K. Kaul and Justice R. Mahadevan made the observations on a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) moved by D. Sivakumar, District Vice President of Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI).
The petitioner wanted the court to direct the Coimbatore District Collector to assess the damage caused by volunteers of the Hindu Munnani on the wake of the funeral procession of its cadre Sasikumar, who was murdered on September 22. He further wanted the Collector to recover damages from the organisation and pay compensation to the victims.
When the PIL came up for hearing, pointing out the description provided by the petitioner to the respondents – “Right-wing communal outfit” – the Bench said, “It is apparent that the two groups [SDPI and Hindu Munnani] are different political outfits.”
As to the relief sought by the petitioner, the Bench said, “We are of the view that the incident was a single one preceded by a murder and as per the information in the public domain, there is alleged damage to public property. An incident of such a nature can be attended to by the State government and sufficient time has not passed for judicial intervention at this stage,” the Bench said. The State government (on representation of the petitioner) can investigate the matter and determine the damages, if any, it added. Holding that for the present the court leaves the issue to the State government, the Bench closed the PIL.
