Dharmapuri police pulled up for history-sheeter tag to PDK leader

The Dharmapuri district police was pulled up by the Madras High Court for mechanically retaining the name of a Periyar Dravidar Kazhagam (PDK) functionary in the history-sheet for more than five years.

There were several court rulings regulating the use of opening of history-sheet, surveillance list and domiciliary visits by the police against persons suspected to be trouble makers in their jurisdiction, Justice K Chandru pointed out.

“The continued retention of K Vediappan’s name is really humiliating, especially because he is a district-level leader of a non-political social reform organisation,” the judge added.

Justice Chandru, however, rejected the petitioner’s plea for a direction to the police to pay a compensation of `5 lakh for the agony he had undergone.

No case had been made out to order compensation, the judge said.

Two cases had been registered against the petitioner, the first one by the Harur police following a complaint from an advocate in March 2006. The second one was registered in December 2007, on a complaint from a TNEB employee. In both the cases, charge-sheets had not been filed till date.

In its counter, the police said Vediappan was conducting ‘kangaroo’ courts and collected money from the public on false promises. He trespassed into government offices and threatened officials.

Besides helping extremists indirectly, he was collecting money for installing a statue for one Naveen Prasad, who was killed in a police encounter, it added.

Rejecting the submissions, Justice Chandru wondered as to how the petitioner’s name could be retained in the history-sheet for more than five years and how it was renewed more than twice mechanically.

“Assuming that some grounds were made available to open the history-sheet, it is not clear as to how the DSP can mechanically extend it on the same materials for more than two times.”

As for the cases registered against him in 2006 and 2007, no charge sheet has been filed even after six years of the incident, the judge pointed out, and directed the Dharmapuri police to delete Vediappan’s name from the history-sheet immediately.