Court orders immediate action in case of toddler's death.
Chennai: Coming down heavily on the police for their failure to file charge sheet even after three years in the case relating to the death of a 3-year-old boy, who fell into a manhole and died on June 15, 2013 in Taramani, the Madras high court directed that departmental proceedings be initiated against the delinquent officers with all seriousness to fix the responsibility and the result of the same should be placed before the court.
A division bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R.Mahadevan gave the directive while passing orders on a PIL from social activist 'Traffic' Ramaswamy, which sought to take action against the officers for the mishap and to pay compensation to the family of the deceased.
The bench said the investigation into the unfortunate death of a child due to negligence, which resulted in a case being registered under section 304-A IPC, was stated to have been completed in 2013 itself, the incident being one of June 15, 2013.
It was conceded that the result of the investigation was that culpability has been found. However, no charge sheet was filed for almost three years and only now a charge sheet has been filed, the bench added.
The bench said, "This is an unpardonable negligence on behalf of whoever was responsible for the same in the police department and we cannot rest the matter at only filing of the charge sheet. We direct departmental proceedings to be initiated against the delinquent officers with all seriousness to fix the responsibility and the result of the same should be placed before the court. We make it clear that we will not accept the usual wishy-washy way of imposition of some punishment on a junior officer, as the matter relates to the very probity of the functioning of the department. The deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order), Adyar, who is present in the court undertakes to the court to do the needful".
As far as the role of the corporation officials was concerned, the Additional advocate general stated that the matter has been reviewed and in view of the charge sheet filed and the material which has come to light, the whole issue of fixing administrative responsibility for the negligence was being reviewed and necessary departmental proceedings will be initiated. The result of the same be placed before the court, the bench added and posted the matter to January 30 for reporting compliance.
