The Madras High Court has directed the Director-General of Police and the Additional Director-General of Police, Idol Wing-Criminal Investigation Department (CID), to find out the names of police personnel who were responsible for the missing of 41 case diaries related to idol theft cases in 2020 and initiate action against them.
Chief Justice Munishwar Nath Bhandari and Justice N. Mala issued the direction while disposing of a writ petition filed by lawyer ‘Elephant’ G. Rajendran who had insisted upon constituting a team, headed by a retired police officer, to register cases against “police officers, politicians and millionaires” involved in the mysterious missing of 41 case diaries.
Concurring with the petitioner that the missing of case diaries was a serious issue, the judges also directed the DGP as well as the ADGP to issue a general direction to their subordinates to maintain the case diaries carefully in the future or end up facing severe action for having failed to keep the documents in safe custody.
Recording the submission of Advocate-General R. Shunmugasundaram that the case diaries in all 41 cases had been reconstructed now, the first Division Bench also made clear that the investigation in idol theft cases should not be kept pending for years together for one reason or the other and that it should be completed at the earliest.
The judges also deprecated the delay in completing the investigation in such cases. “It may be that the idols are recovered or not recovered, but when a case is registered, the investigation is to be conducted promptly. We find serious failure on the part of the police officers in completing the investigation in the matters,” the Bench wrote.
