Chennai: An RTI petitioner filed a complaint with the state law department and urged action against Tamil Nadu police officials who failed to collect adequate evidence related to murder cases in the state.
Giving the Kanchi seer–Sankararaman murder case as an example, which resulted in acquittal of all the accused, RTI activist R. Natarajan said in his complaint that there has to be a detailed study to examine whether the prosecution was done in a fair manner and wanted to establish a procedure to take action against erring officials in the future.
“When someone is murdered and the final judgment is acquittal due to lack of evidence, it does not serve any purpose and there has to be some legal solution,” said Mr Natarajan. In his complaint, the senior citizen said a recent judgment by a Supreme Court bench, comprising justices C.K. Prasad and J.S. Khelkar, had indicated this and also suggested that the home department of every state formulate procedures for action against all erring officials. TN can follow the apex court order, he suggested.
“For the past four months, I have been moving RTI petitions with both the TN and the Puducherry governments that have dealt with the case trial, but officials are not giving a concrete reply. The directorate of prosecution, Puducherry government, said on June 16 that the TN police had dealt with the case, but in the RTI reply, they confirmed that they would go for an appeal against the acquittal in the Sankararaman case,” he said.
“In a criminal case, when the witness turns hostile it leads to acquittal and the prosecution and investigating authorities can’t be blamed for this,” explains a lawyer attached to a public prosecutor’s office in the city, adding that so far, there is no legal provision to punish a person for poor investigation or trial.
