Chennai, June 25(IANS)

The first bench of the Madras High Court of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and T.S. Sivagangam came down heavily against the state government over the police firing at Tuticorin against unarmed protestors at the Sterilite plant-killing 13 people. The court made the observation on a plea seeking a direction to NHRC to reopen the case pertaining to the police firing incident.

The court observed, “It is somewhat alarming that the state through its police fired at unarmed protestors and no one is booked three years after the incident. It does not augur well for a civilized society governed by constitutional principles that we have to merely throw money at the families of the victims and give closure to an incident of brutality and excessive police action”.

The judges made the observations while directing the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to submit the report of its team that probed the police firing on anti- Sterilite protestors in Tuticorin in 2018.

The court also orally observed that throwing money at people and hushing up everything is not good for a society governed by a constitution. The court also observed that a greater part with regard to the punishment is left unanswered.

The first bench of the Madras High Court observed, “Can we kill people and throw money at them and say that our job is done.? Is that the society we want to build? Just throwing money at some people and everything else is hushed up.”

The Madras High court directed the Tamil Nadu government to submit the interim report of the Justice (Retired) Aruna Jagadeesan commission.