CHENNAI: Providing police protection to a history sheeter who incites life threats by his criminal or anti-social activities will be against public morality, said the Madras High Court while rejecting the plea of a politician seeking police protection.
In several cases, journalists have been murdered for publishing news against corruption and social evil by miscreants, wrote a division bench of Justice SS Sundar and Justice N Senthilkumar while rejecting the petition of the politician.
Whenever the situation warrants, the State may consider granting police protection to the persons based on threat perceptions; if the petitioner makes an application for protection at his cost, it may be considered on merits and by law, wrote the bench. Stalin Barathi, a council member of Needamangalam Taluk and a member of the Communist Party of India, moved a petition against the order of the district superintendent of police refusing to give him police protection.
The petitioner submitted that his father, who was a member of the executive committee and the union party secretariat of the CPI, was murdered by rowdy Boovanur Rajkumar. It was submitted that the petitioner was given police protection after his father’s attack, but the personal security officer was withdrawn when he was arrayed as an accused in the murder of Rajkumar.
He contended that the mere pendency of a criminal case was not a valid reason to reject a request for police protection when there was a potential threat. The police submitted that there were 22 criminal cases against Barathi; some cases were of serious nature, and he was even registered as a history sheeter.
It was also submitted that, as per the investigation into Rajkumar’s death, Barathi was actively involved in the same. Thus, police protection could not be granted to a rowdy element at the cost of the State. After the submission, the bench dismissed the petition.