The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday disposed of a batch of public interest litigation petitions that were filed in 2018 with regard to the Thoothukudi police firing incident.
A Division Bench of Justices C.V. Karthikeyan and R. Sakthivel said the court hoped that the State government would come forward to provide adequate compensation to the family members of the victims.
Earlier, the court had taken note of the compliance report submitted by the State. It was submitted that under the previous DMK government further action was dropped in the disciplinary proceedings initiated against the then Thoothukudi Collector N. Venkatesh, the then Inspector General of Police Shailesh Kumar Yadav and the then Deputy Inspector General of Police Kapil Kumar C. Saratkar.
The court had sought details with regard to the Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission of Inquiry report, action taken based on the report, relief granted to the family members of the victims and other such details related to the case.
The court also dismissed a contempt petition that alleged that defects in CBI’s investigation into the police firing case had led to dropping of the disciplinary action against erring police officers. The court said a protest petition had been filed before the trial court against the chargesheet filed in the case.
In August 2018, the High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the police firing incident that claimed 13 lives and left many injured during the anti-Sterlite protests in Thoothukudi on May 22 and 23 in 2018. The protesters had demanded the closure of Vedanta’s Sterlite Copper plant. The matter posted under the caption ‘for reporting compliance’ was disposed of.
Published – September 28, 2026 10:22 pm IST
