CBI given three months to file report on violance in Madras high court

Chennai: The Madras high court directed the advocates associations on Friday to submit to the CBI within two months all material relating to the February 19, 2009 violence on the premises of the Madras high court, in which several advocates and police personnel, besides a judge of the Madras high court, were injured. The CBI, in turn, should proceed with further investigation and file an additional final report within three months.

The full bench, comprising Justices S. Rajeswaran, R. Subbiah and A. Arumughaswamy, gave the directive while disposing of petitions from the Tamil Nadu Advocates Association (TNAA) and Women Lawyers Association (WLA).
On February 19, 2009, when police attempted to arrest a group of lawyers in connection with the incident relating to throwing rotten eggs on Dr Subramanian Swamy in the court, clashes broke out between the police and lawyers.

The high court ordered a CBI probe into the incident. Subsequently, TNAA and WLA filed the present petitions to direct the CBI to conduct a fair and proper investigation and the high court to monitor this. Alleging that the CBI had filed a biased report intending to protect senior police officials, advocate K. Muthuramalingam filed a petition to implead himself in the case and transfer the investigation to the special investigation team (SIT).
A division bench, comprising justices V. Dhanapalan and C.T. Selvam, had, on July 15, 2013, referred the matter to the full bench.

The full bench said, “In the light of the facts, we do not consider this case as a proper and fit case for transferring from the CBI to some other agency. Therefore, while disposing of these petitions, we direct all the petitioners and the impleaded party to submit all documents, photographs, media clippings and other relevant material to the CBI within two months. On such material being furnished to them, the CBI shall proceed with further investigation, having the observations made by this court in mind and file an additional final report within three months. This court is of the hope that the CBI wiill not create a situation, compelling this court to transfer the investigation to some other agency.”