A public interest litigation petition has been filed in the Madras High Court seeking the constitution of a special investigation team, comprising women police officers and led by a gender sensitive officer in the rank of Deputy Inspector-General of Police, to probe into the issue of Nirmala Devi, an assistant professor (since suspended) in mathematics at Devanga Arts College in Aruppukottai, Virudhunagar district, who allegedly attempted to traffic college students.
D. Ganesan, state coordinator of the Revolutionary Students Youth Front (RSYF)-Tamil Nadu, has filed the petition. He said an audio recording, of the faculty talking to a few students on the phone and luring them to subject themselves to the sexual desires of some highly placed officials, was shared widely on social media on April 16. She was arrested the very next day and the investigation was also transferred to Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID).
Additional Director-General of Police K. Jayanth Murali, who was heading the CB-CID, was replaced by another officer ADGP Amaresh Pujari, “which is suspected to be a ploy to derail the investigation and somehow protect the other main accused occupying top positions,” the petitioner alleged. He claimed that the one-man commission appointed suo motu by the Governor to probe into the issue was unwarranted since “it creates an impression that something is wrong.”
Another petition
An advocate practising in the Supreme Court had already filed a similar PIL petition in the High Court seeking a court-monitored Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incident.
The petitioner, G.S. Mani, 34, had claimed that though the offence was grave, the local police had booked a simple case under Section 370 (trafficking of persons) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 67 (Punishment for publishing or transmitting obscene material in electronic form) of the Information Technology Act of 2000 against the suspended Assistant Professor alone without naming any other official.
“So it is crystal clear that the State police is trying to protect some unknown accused persons who are in the State authority... I submit that the news item (on the phone conversation with the students) says that at one point of time in the conversation, the professor even claims to have access to the Governor... So, it is just and necessary that a court-monitored CBI probe is ordered,” his affidavit read.
