Techie's death: HC asks why no action has been taken against Corpn, police officials

The Madras High Court on Monday asked why no action has been taken against the Chennai Corporation and police officials who failed to prevent the erection of the unauthorised digital banner that led to the death of a 23-year-old woman techie in Pallikaranai recently.

Justice M S Ramesh raised the oral query while hearing a plea moved by E Tamizmani of Ilayathalaimurai, an NGO, seeking direction to the Chennai Police commissioner to grant permission to the organisation to hold a token fast in front of the corporation's Pallikaranai office to express solidarity with the grief-stricken family of R Subashri who died when the banner came down crashing down on her on September 12.

The judge then directed the police commissioner to file his response to the plea on September 25.

Tamizmani in the petition said, he made a representation to the commissioner seeking permission for the protest on September 15, but when it was rejected, he moved the court.

When the plea came up, the petitioner submitted that the organisation was not staging the protest condemning anybody or the government but to mourn the death of Subashri along with her family.

He wanted the court to direct the commissioner to grant permission for the protest on some other day.

Coming down heavily on the state government over illegal hoardings, a division bench of justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee had wondered how many more lives should be lost as a result of such banners, endangering the lives of the people.

The observations were made when the bench heard a plea by social activist 'Traffic' Ramaswamy and an urgent mentioning by advocates V Lakshminarayanan and V Kannadasan on September 13.

The court had also directed the state to pay Rs 5 lakh as interim compensation to the victim's family, with liberty to recover it from erring officials.