Supreme Court stays order for CBI probe into sexual assault of minor in Chennai

The Supreme Court has stayed an order passed by the Madras High Court on October 1 transferring the investigation in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act case from the Anna Nagar All Women Police Station in Chennai to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Supreme Court has stayed an order passed by the Madras High Court on October 1 transferring the investigation in a Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act case from the Anna Nagar All Women Police Station in Chennai to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Passing interim orders on a criminal appeal preferred by the Greater Chennai City Police, the top court has directed the Tamil Nadu government to furnish a list of five to seven direct recruit Indian Police Service (IPS) officers who hail from other States but are now serving in the Tamil Nadu cadre.

A Bench of Justices Surya Kant and Ujjal Bhuyan made it clear that the list should contain at least three women officers and that the State government must place before the court all their details, such as their rank, present place of posting, the State from which they hail, and other relevant information.

The judges further ordered that the State government must provide financial aid to the mother of the survivor to engage a counsel to contest the appeal before the Supreme Court, and that the fee to be paid to the counsel would be determined by them during the next hearing on November 18.

After ordering notice to the survivor’s mother, the Bench directed the Supreme Court Registry to clearly mention in the notice that the entire litigation expenses, to be incurred by her for contesting the appeal before the Supreme Court, would be borne by the State government and that she need not shell out any money.

A Division Bench of the Madras High Court had transferred the investigation, into the complaint of sexual assault of a 10-year-old girl, to the CBI following a complaint that the Inspector of the Anna Nagar All Women police station had assaulted the parents of the survivor.

The High Court had also taken a serious note of an audio clip containing the survivor’s statement having been leaked to the media and the delay of more than 10 days in arresting the accused despite the girl having identified him clearly. The orders were passed on a habeas corpus petition failed by the survivor’s mother.