Why apologise now, Madras HC asks cops who arrested judge

TNN | Aug 2, 2014, 06.45 AM IST

CHENNAI: The contempt of court proceedings against three senior police officers, including a woman superintendent of police, for their role in the controversial arrest of a magistrate last year on rape charges took a serious turn on Friday with the Madras high court questioning the "unconditional apology" tendered by the officers. 

The court has already listed three issues to be decided in the case against the three officers - SP R Ponni and DSPs Suresh Kumar and C Pitchai - and posted the matter for trial. When the matter was taken up on Friday, their senior counsel offered unconditional apology to the court. 

Questioning the genuineness of the apology, a division bench of Jusice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice M Sathyanarayanan pointed out that the officers had justified the June 29, 2013 arrest of S Thangaraj, who was a judicial magistrate in the Nilgiris district at that time. The judges said Ponni had said in her affidavit that the arrest had to be made because charges were grave and the woman sub-inspector who lodged the rape complaint herself faced threat to life. 

The judges said the three officers were free to adopt any form of defence during trial. But, now that they had specifically denied any wrongdoing and pleaded not guilty, they could not tender "unconditional apology" as it was self-contradictory. They then asked the senior counsel to furnish a list of witnesses to be examined during trial. 

Senior advocate Parthasarathy, who has been named amicus curiae in the case, said the SP must take responsibility for the whole episode. He was asked by the court to file necessary requests for summoning the judicial officers required to be examined in the case. 

The judges, making it clear that they would not venture into the facts of the case, said the proceedings would decide whether the police officers wilfully violated the mandatory Supreme Court judgments governing the issue. "It will be on procedural lapses," the bench said, adding that no one would be permitted to rake up facts connected to the alleged rape charges and the arrest of the magistrate. 

They then adjourned the matter to August 7 for further proceedings.