Manickavel wrongly took credit for getting idol back from Australia: T.N. govt.

AAG says PM’s efforts resulted in Nataraja idol being returned to India

November 13, 2019 01:19 am | Updated 04:33 am IST - CHENNAI

A view of the Madras High Court. File

A view of the Madras High Court. File

The State government on Tuesday accused Madras High Court-appointed Idol Wing-CID special officer A.G. Ponn Manickavel of appropriating efforts taken by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to bring back from Australia an idol of Lord Nataraja stolen from Sri Kulasekaramudaiyar Temple at Kallidaikurichi in Tirunelveli district in 1982.

Appearing before a Division Bench of Justices R. Mahadevan and P.D. Audikesavalu, Additional Advocate General Balaji Srinivasan (representing the State in the Supreme Court) said the Prime Minister in 2014 during his visit to Australia for negotiating supply of uranium for our nuclear reactors requested that the ancient Indian idol be returned.

Subsequently, the requests were followed up by the Ministry of External Affairs through diplomatic channels leading to the return of the idol by the Australian authorities. However, without informing any higher official of the State government, the special officer visited New Delhi in September, collected the idol and claimed it to be his achievement, the AAG charged. The Additional Advocate General accused the special officer of rushing to the media to tom-tom his so called achievements. Taking strong exception to such submissions, Mr. Manickavel said he had recovered the idol from Australia after taking painstaking efforts of writing letters rogatory to the Australian Federal Police and other foreign officials for over two years.

“They asked me to come to Australia but I said, I will not spend government money on such travel. I got back the idol by sitting right here in my office,” he asserted. After hearing both of them, Justice Mahadevan wondered how the idol was handed over to the special officer in New Delhi if the State government had not authorised him to collect it.

The AAG said a contempt of court petition filed by the special officer against the Chief Secretary, Director-General of Police and other top officials was not maintainable at all. He claimed that Mr. Manickavel could ventilate any grievance he had against his superiors only before the Supreme Court.

According to Mr. Srinivasan, the High Court’s November 30, 2018 order appointing Mr. Manickavel as a special officer, pursuant to his retirement from the post of Inspector General of Police, had got merged with a subsequent order passed by the Supreme Court on a State appeal and hence the contempt would lie only before the latter.

Allgeded omissions

The Bench was also told that the State government had already approached the Supreme Court seeking a direction to the Special Officer to hand over files relating to all idol theft related cases after his one year tenure comes to an end on November 30 this year. In that petition, the government listed his alleged omissions and commissions.

“He had not attended even a single review meeting called for by the Additional Director General of Police. He has also not filed a single report to the ADGP so far,” the AAG said and claimed that the State should have hauled him up for contempt of the orders passed by the Supreme Court to report to the superior officers in the Police Department.

Advocate V. Selvaraj, representing the special officer, told the court that out of 272 idol theft related cases, 174 were never transferred to the special investigating team. He claimed that the case diaries of 31 cases were missing. “Under the pretext of missing CD files, the accused are protected by the State and the police,” he alleged.

The counsel claimed that the functions of the special officer were crippled ever since his appointment of November 30 last year and he had not been allowed to work independently. Such an attitude amounted to a contumacious act on the part of the State government and top officials in the Police Department, he said.

After the hearing, the judges adjourned the contempt plea for further hearing to November 20.

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