A few Ministers, bureaucrats, police officers and officials of the Hindu Religous and Charitable Endowments (HR&CE) department were peeved over the constitution of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe idol theft cases in the State and there were many attempts to derail the investigations, A. G. Ponn Manickavel, retired Inspector General of Police and former Special Officer of Idol Wing-CID, has told the Madras High Court.
In a counter affidavit filed before Justices N. Kirubakaran and P. Velmurugan, who were seized of a case accusing him of having misled the court, he recalled that it was the High Court in July 2017 which had ordered that all pending idol theft-related cases in the State as well as those to be booked in future be investigated by a SIT led by him when he was serving as the Inspector General of Police, Idol Wing-CID.
Even after his retirement on November 30, 2018, the court appointed him as a Special Officer for a period of one year to continue the investigation.
Since he was not allowed to perform effectively post retirement, he filed a contempt of court petition against former Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, former Home Secretary Niranjan Mardi, former Director-General of Police T.K. Rajendran and incumbent ADGP Abhay Kumar Singh.
Pointing out that the contempt petition was still pending in the High Court, the former IGP said the present public interest litigation petition filed against him by S. Sekaran, who claimed to be a “press reporter,” was nothing but gross abuse of the process of the court.
“The PIL petitioner is liable to be prosecuted and punished for gross criminal contempt... The petition has been filed to help high profile accused and not in public interest.
“I submit that a few Ministers, HR&CE officials, bureaucrats, police officials and others are peeved by the formation of a SIT to inquire into idol theft cases. There have been many attempts to derail the investigation by the SIT,” the counter affidavit filed through his counsel V. Selvaraj read.
In his affidavit, the PIL petitioner accused Mr. Manickavel of having submitted false data regarding his track record to get himself appointed as Special Officer.
The petition has been listed for hearing before the Bench led by Justice Kirubakaran on Friday.
