HC slams police action; upholds SHRC order

Reproving two police personnel for not respecting human rights and treating human beings as "chattel", the Madras High Court bench here today upheld the order of the State Human Rights Commission directing them to pay compensation to a woman whose daughter set herself ablaze after they dragged her mother to the police station in 2006.
A Division Bench of Justice N Paul Vasanthakumar and Justice P Devadass agreed with the SHRC which came to the conclusion that the woman sub-inspector, Esther Rani, and constable Muthupandi had committed excesses and due to that the complainant's daughter committed suicide.
The two police personnel had been candid in admitting that they had taken the woman Bathirakali to the station. They had dragged her to the police station, though her daughter threatened to commit suicide.

The daughter in her dying declaration had also stated that she was not able to bear the police harassment.
Even the Inspector Uma Maheswaran had pulled up the SI and the constable for having brought a woman to the station, and they told him that they would be able to bring her son against whom a case had been registered only by such an act (detaining his mother).
The SHRC had concluded that "most inhuman act" had been committed by the SI and constable, and asked them to give a compensation of Rs one lakh to the mother in the ratio of 2:1. Meanwhile, the SI died.

The constable appealed against the SHRC's order directing him to pay Rs 33,333.
According to Bathirakali on April 18, 2006, the SI and constable had come to her house when she and her daughter were alone. As her son was not there, the SI got enraged and dragged her to the station, she alleged.
Her daughter protested and threatened to set herself ablaze but they did not listen. After her daughter committed suicide she filed a complaint before the State Human Rights Commission, which ordered to pay the compensation on January 11, 2008.