Minister, DGP interfering in idol theft cases: Manickavel to HC

The court-appointed special officer to probe idol theft cases in Tamil Nadu has moved the Madras High Court, alleging that a minister and a DGP were interfering in cases in which influential people were involved.

Pon Manickavel requested the court to pull up the state chief secretary, home secretary and the idol wing ADGP for contempt of court for alleged disobedience of its earlier orders in the cases.

The contempt petition, filed in the HC registry, is likely to be taken up for hearing Tuesday.

Manickavel submitted that he was appointed as a special officer to head the Idol Wing CID and probe idol theft cases in the state for a year through a November 30, 2018 court order.

This was also confirmed by the Supreme Court.

"The team under me consists of four ASPs, 12 DSPs, 17 inspectors, and 47 SIs. On May 31, the government appointed Rajeswari as Superintendent of Police of the wing in the newly created post though there is a bar on making changes in the wing without the court's permission," Manickavel said in his affidavit.

"The appointment has been made without any request from me with ulterior motive to intermeddle with the course of investigation. It amounts to gross disobedience of the order passed by the high court," he added.

He also alleged that many idol theft cases registered in various districts were yet to be transferred to the idol wing and that a discreet inquiry by the special investigation team revealed that case diary (CD) files of 43 idol theft cases with various SPs were missing.

Since politicians, senior bureaucrats, senior officials of the HR and CE department and industrialists are suspects in many cases, impediments are created to prevent the investigation by the special investigation team, Manickavel claimed.