A public interest litigation petition filed in the Madras High Court accused Idol Wing-CID Special Officer A.G. Ponn Manickavel of submitting false data on his investigations in idol theft cases and the number of ancient idols recovered under his leadership, to get himself appointed to the post of Inspector General of Police after his retirement on November 30, 2018. The PIL has been listed for admission before a Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and M. Nirmal Kumar on Friday.
S. Sekaran, 49, of Korattur filed the case claiming to be a “press reporter.” He had, early this week, filed another PIL alleging collection of donations by one Sridharan of Airavath Trust for reconstitution of a special Division Bench in the High Court to hear idol theft cases.
When that PIL was listed for admission before Justices Sathyanarayanan and N. Seshasayee on Monday, they had directed the High Court Registry to list it before another Bench.
In the petition filed through his counsel Lita Srinivasan, the litigant stated that Mr. Manickavel made tall and unbelievable claims of getting back as many as 1,125 “stolen idols” between 2012 and 2018 when he served as the IG of Idol Wing CID.
The petitioner pointed out that the High Court had appointed him as a Special Officer only after being impressed with the figures submitted by him in court. Stating that those figures had been recorded in the court order, the litigant said that the inquiries made by him revealed that most of the idols seized by the Special Officer, during his tenure as IG, from various individuals were yet to be proved as stolen properties and were simply stored in Government Museum at Egmore.
Mr. Sekaran said he also made an application under the Right to Information Act, 2005, seeking details of the idols recovered by the Idol Wing CID so far and the temples from where they were suspected to have been stolen.
The details were sought solely on the basis of the details submitted in the High Court. However, a Deputy Superintendent of Police attached to the Idol Wing CID replied that the RTI Act would not be applicable to his wing.
Such a reply indicates that the Idol Wing CID was interested only in gaining publicity out of the news fed by them to the media and was shying away from answering pointed questions, the petitioner alleged.
Stating that he had given a representation to the Director General of Police in this regard, Mr. Sekaran urged the court to order a Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) inquiry into the complaint of submission of false data in the court.
