Inspector General of Police A.G. Ponn Manickavel, who is due to retire from service on November 30, created a furore in the Madras High Court on Monday by accusing the Home Secretary and Director General of Police of having ordered “a fault-finding inquiry” behind his back to hold him responsible for flawed investigations in idol theft cases.
Taking serious note of his accusations, which were also made in writing, a Division Bench comprising Justice R. Mahadevan and Justice P.D. Audikesavalu directed Additional Public Prosecutor C. Iyapparaj and Special Government Pleader M. Maharaja to intimate government officials to not pass any adverse order against the Idol Theft Wing CID officials without placing the relevant materials, if any, collected by them before the court by Wednesday.
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It was during the hearing of a batch of anticipatory bail petitions filed by a few accused in an idol theft case that the IGP levelled the accusations. He claimed that a team of the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID), headed by a woman Superintendent of Police, had been entrusted with the work of finding fault with his probe.
He said the team had been conducting an inquiry for the last one month and it was trying to establish that the ancient bronze idol of Raja Raja Cholan, which he had recovered from Sarabhai Foundation in Gujarat, was actually an idol of Chandeeswaran and not the missing idol of Raja Raja Cholan from the Brihadeeswarar Temple in Thanjavur.
He said CB-CID officials had gone to a special court established in Kumbakonam for conducting trial in idol theft cases and elicited information even from law officers on the investigations conducted by his team in various idol theft cases.
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The woman officer had also examined him at his office about a week ago, he claimed.
“We have come to know that something is happening behind our back. They may come up with any kind of allegations against us,” the IGP told the court and urged the court to order that any material collected against him and his team of officials to be placed first before the court and no proceedings should be initiated without the court’s nod.
Peacock idol case
Subsequently, the judges reserved orders on the anticipatory bail petitions filed by sculptor Muthiah Stapathi, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments Department official N. Thirumagal and other accused in the case booked in connection with alleged theft of a peacock idol from Kapaleeshwarar Temple at Mylapore here during the consecration held in 2004.
The HR&CE department told the court that some of the records related to the 2004 consecration were destroyed in 2009 and the some more were destroyed in 2013 in accordance with the provisions of the Government Manual for Destruction of Records and therefore the department was not in a position to part with the documents to the Idol Theft Wing CID.
Since the Idol Theft Wing had already filed a report in the court claiming that it had materials to suspect destruction of records after the case was booked this year, the judges directed the incumbent HR &CE Commissioner to file an affidavit by Wednesday asserting that none of the records were destroyed recently.