Idol Wing CID not formed on court order, submits state

Filing a 23-page counter seeking to withdraw the interim stay on Government Order (GO) dated August 1, 2018, transferring the probe to the CBI, M Murugan, Joint Secretary, Home (Strictly confidential), said, “The idol wing CID cannot effectively function only vide the directions of the High Court judgment dated July 21, 2017 and that its real investigative powers and authority is derived only from the GO dated October 7, 1983.”

Listing out the directions issued by the High Court, which were almost complied with by the government, the counter said the judgment contemplated an investigative role for the idol wing CID and did not postulate any special/additional/extra powers to the same department.

Also, the investigation by the police is a statutory function and there are limited grounds for interference and the action of government in transferring all the investigations now and in future was not interference in the on-going factual aspects of the pending trials, the counter added besides noting that the High Court order did not intend to convert itself as the monitoring nodal agency for the entire task, but remain as a Constitutional Criminal Court in monitoring the administrative and judicial exercises undertaken by the statutory agencies viz the Idol Wing ‘CID’ and the HR&CE.

Stating that string of communications began much earlier when one of the petitions containing serious allegations was sent to the IG Idol Wing CID for remarks on March 23, 2018 by the DGP, the counter said “The IG (Pon Manickavel) failed to send para wise remarks and sent a vague reply on April 13, 2018, without giving any importance to the allegations made. The IG also sent an email to ADGP stating that the investigation team is a creature of High Court and is subject to the orders of the High Court and other than the High Court no one else has jurisdiction to review the investigation.”

A special bench of Justice R Mahadevan and Justice PD Audikesavlu on receipt of the counter directed Advocate Elephant Rajendran, who challenged the transfer of the cases to the CBI, to file his reply within a week.