Suspended special Director General of Police Rajesh Das has approached the Madras High Court, challenging the Villupuram Chief Judicial Magistrate (CJM) court’s refusal to accept his assertion that it lacks territorial jurisdiction to try a criminal case booked against him for having reportedly made sexual advances towards a woman Superintendent of Police (SP) and having prevented her from lodging a complaint.
Justice P. Velmurugan will be hearing the revision petition on Wednesday, along with another revision filed by suspended SP D. Kannan, a co-accused, against the refusal of the CJM to discharge him from the criminal case. The duo have also filed sub applications, urging the High Court to stay the trial court proceedings until the disposal of their criminal revision petitions.
The CJM had passed individual orders on October 4, dismissing the pleas made by the two suspended police officers, and hence, the present revision petitions. The offences for which the special DGP has been booked were committed when he and the victim officer were on duty on February 21, and travelling from one district to another to oversee security arrangements for the then Chief Minister, Edappadi K. Palaniswami.
Since the offences were committed during travel, the accused argued that the charge sheet ought to have been filed either before a judicial magistrate in Ulundurpet, Kallakurichi district, or a magistrate in Chengalpattu district.
However, CJM S. Gopinathan rejected the argument on the ground that he was empowered to try all cases investigated by the CB-CID, Villupuram.
The CJM said Villupuram had been bifurcated, and a new district, Kallakurichi, had been created only on the revenue side.
Mr. Gopinanthan also recorded the submission of CB-CID that the suspended special DGP was preferring such pleas with meritless arguments only to delay the trial.
Discharge plea
As far as the co-accused, Kannan, who has been charged of waylaying the victim officer when she was on her way to Chennai to lodge the complaint, is concerned, the CJM refused to discharge him.
He negatived his argument that the CB-CID had not established even a prima facie case, despite having examined 127 witnesses and collected 73 documents, three compact discs and nine photographs, before laying a chargesheet that runs to 1,069 pages.
“This court found after consideration of the final report and the connected materials that there is prima facie a strong ground for the presumption of guilt of the accused, and is also of the opinion that the accused must have committed an offence...,” the CJM wrote, dismissing the discharge plea.
Assailing the CJM’s order, the suspended SP said that he was present at the Paranur Toll Plaza on the day of the incident only as part of the Chief Minister’s security arrangement, and not at the behest of the prime accused (the suspended special DGP).
