Investigating officers cannot he held for malicious prosecution if the accused is acquitted, said the Madras High Court, dismissing the summons issued against an investigation officer following a plea that the accused in a case was subjected to malicious prosecution by the officer.
Chennai:
Based on a complaint given by Rajamani, the Egmore police registered an FIR and arrested Wilson Sundarraj on charges of attempt to murder and criminal conspiracy among others. Later, the case was transferred to CB-CID and A Radhika, then the DSP, CB-CID, was assigned the task of investigating the case. Based on her final report, the accused persons faced trial.
But the trial court acquitted all the accused persons through an order on February 23, 2006. The High Court also dismissed CB-CID’s appeal on June 22, 2017. Following this, Wilson moved the City Civil Court in 2019 against Rajamani and the DSP, claiming that the entire case was a malicious prosecution against him. Based on this, the court issued summons asking the DSP to appear before it for an enquiry.
However, Justice N Anand Venkatesh pointed out that as per Section 211 IPC false charges can only relate to the original or initial accusation through which the criminal law was set in motion. As it was DSP Radhika who investigated the her, Wilson wanted to drag her in as if the officer prosecuted a false charge, the judge said.
“If investigating officers are going to be exposed to such proceedings in all cases where the accused persons are acquitted from all charges, it will directly interfere with the independence of the authority in conducting an investigation,” the court stressed.
Govt asked to file report on public library movement
Observing that libraries played a fundamental role in society and were needed more than ever before in these digital times, the Madras High Court directed the State government to file a report on the efforts taken to establish libraries in government-run institutions and also to take the public library movement to the next level by bringing in active public participation.
Justice M Dhandapani who sought for the comprehensive report laid stress on the significance of libraries for the intellectual upliftment of society.
“It would not be out of context here to state that every citizen in this country carries a smartphone and any information required by the individual can be googled in no time. However, it is to be pointed out that though Google can bring you back 1,00,000 answers, a librarian alone can bring you the right one,” he said.
Noting the statistics maintained by the government, the court expressed concern over the disproportionately low number of libraries in the villages of Tamil Nadu. “It is manifestly clear that for 15,979 villages, only a paltry number of libraries, around 1,915 village libraries, 14 mobile libraries and 745 part-time libraries, are alone available, which works out to roughly 15 per cent of the strength of the villages,” Justice Dhandapani remarked.
As part of the comprehensive report, the court also sought details of the utilisation of funds collected in the form of cess and other payments received towards membership, and also the funds provided by the government to the local library authorities.
The observations were made in a batch of petitions which challenged an amendment to the rules under the Tamil Nadu Public Libraries Act relating to appointment of library staff, which was dismissed.
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