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Madurai: Madras high court on Monday sought the TVK govt’s stand on re-examining the decisions taken by the previous govt to drop disciplinary action against three officials — the then Thoothukudi district collector N Venkatesh, then inspector-general of police Shailesh Kumar Yadav and then DIG of police Kapil Kumar C Saratkar — in connection with the police firing on anti-Sterlite protestors in Thoothukudi in 2018. The court passed the order while hearing a batch of petitions filed in 2018 pertaining to the Tuticorin police firing incident. The petitioners sought a direction to initiate action against the erring officials responsible for the death of 13 people in the incident. The matter was adjourned to Sept 10.
Taking into account the report, a division bench of Justice C V Karthikeyan and Justice R Sakthivel sought response from the present TVK govt with regard to re-examining the decisions taken by the previous govt to drop the disciplinary action.
Pursuant to the earlier order, the state filed a compliance report before the court stating that it was under the previous DMK govt further action was dropped in the disciplinary proceedings initiated against the three officials.
Earlier, the court directed the state to file detailed reports on documents relating to Justice Aruna Jagadeesan Commission, action taken on the commission’s report and relief granted to the family members of the victims.