The Andhra Pradesh High Court on Wednesday suo motu treated as public interest litigation a report published in The Hindu about “barbaric incident” of B. Kantha Suneela being pushed under the lorry while saving her daughter from a gang of drunken youths in Tenali and called for a report from the State.
A Division Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice N. V. Ramana and Justice Vilas Afzulpurkar directed the Advocate General to take the notice for the State and file a report in the matter by April 12. Police too has been asked to send a report by Friday.
Taking a serious note, the Bench said from the news item, it appears that an attack took place on hapless women walking on the street.
Similar incidents were reported in the newspapers in recent times. “No civilised society could tolerate the incident of the nature and if we go by the news item, it is unfortunate to note that neither the police nor the locals came to the rescue of the victims”, the Bench said explaining why the report was taken up as PIL. The Bench directed the Member Secretary, AP State Legal Services Authority to inform the District Judge, Guntur and Secretary of the District Legal Services Authority about the incident to take immediate steps to send para legal volunteers to the victim’s family to render necessary legal aid.
The Bench wanted the Member Secretary to ask the Guntur DLSA to send a detailed report from the police.
Meanwhile, the DLSA of Guntur sent three representatives to meet the family members of Kantha Suneela.
