Court orders CoP’s Toyota car to be sold to pay lawyer’s compensation for 2009 HC clashes

An order issued by the X assistant city civil court judge recently ordered that the car - bearing registration number TN 09 CG 1000 - belonging to the City Police Commissioner, be attached to recover the amount of Rs 1.86 lakh, which is the compensation with interest due to the lawyer. 

The plaintiff PN George Graham, an advocate practising at Madras High Court, owned a Honda City car bearing registration number TN 04 M 1857. 

The lawyer used to park his vehicle in the same campus. On February 19, 2009, when he was attending court at the II Additional Labour court, policemen started to chase the advocates in the court premise, as a result of which Graham got locked inside the labour court. He was unable to take his vehicle out as all the gates were locked by the police. 

The next day, when he went to collect the vehicle, he found that the car had been damaged, so he filed a suit claiming a sum of Rs 57,290 towards repairs. He added a sum of Rs 35,000 towards taxi charges and another amount of Rs 50,000 for damages caused by the mental agony he faced. 

The defendants – The Home Secretary, DGP and CoP – contended that there was a Law & Order problem at B4 police station inside the High Court campus, and they had also denied the car was damaged by the policemen. 

However, in February last year, the court ordered a total sum of Rs 1 lakh as compensation. When the interest was calculated at 12 per cent, the total compensation worked out  to Rs 1.8 lakh. 

As the defendant failed to pay up, the lawyer approached the city civil court once again and the court ordered attachment and sale of the official car of Chennai city Police Commissioner. 

The City Police Commissioner uses a Toyota Corolla Altis, (TN 09 CG 1000) registered on December 5, 2016 in the name of DGP, like most of the police vehicles in the city. As per current market value, the model is estimated to fetch between Rs 12 lakh to Rs 14 lakh now. This particular car has been allocated for use by the Police Commissioners since the time S George was Chennai police chief.