[Thanjavur girl suicide] Tamil Nadu DGP moves Supreme Court against Madras High Court order transferring probe to CBI

The Director General of Police (DGP), Tamil Nadu has moved Supreme Court against the order of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court which transferred the investigation into the suicide of Thanjavur girl Lavanya to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) [Director General of Police, Tamil Nadu v. Muruganantham]..In the special leave petition (SLP) before the top Court, the DGP has argued that the High Court erred in transferring the probe to the CBI.The plea also sought directions from the top court to expunge the remarks made by the High Court against the investigation conducted by the State Police.Madras High Court single-judge Justice GR Swaminathan had transferred the probe to CBI taking note that the investigation was not proceeding on the right lines, especially since a high ranking minister had taken a stand on the matter. Hence, the investigation cannot continue with the State Police.“The Superintendent of Police probably forgot the virtues of silence.. I fail to understand as to why the Thanjavur Superintendent of Police reacted as if she had come in contact with a live electric wire,” the High Court had said in its January 31 order..By way of background, the deceased child Lavanya had consumed pesticide when she was in the school hostel. The judicial magistrate had recorded her dying declaration.In her police statement on January 16 as well as in her statement before the judicial magistrate, the child directly and in unambiguous terms accused the hostel warden of burdening her with non-academic chores as a result of which, she consumed the pesticide.Based on her statements, the hostel warden was booked for offences under Sections 305, 511 of Indian Penal Code 1860 and Sections 75 and 82(1) of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.At a later stage, a private video implicating the school’s correspondent began circulating on social media. When the same was brought to the notice of the Superintendent of Police, she told a reporter that in the preliminary enquiry, the religious conversion angle was not made out.This led to the father of the deceased child losing faith in the investigation and thus, he moved the High Court..On January 31, the High Court had noted in its order that the petitioner was justified in entertaining the impression of bias since by stating that the conversion angle stood ruled out, the SP had brushed aside the petitioner's complaint made in writing which was backed by the child’s video."This Court has a duty to render posthumous justice to the child. The foregoing circumstances cumulatively taken will definitely create an impression that the investigation is not proceeding on the right lines," the Court had observed.Noting that there was nothing “inherently improbable” in the allegation that there was an attempt at conversion, the single-judge had noted that the matter called for an investigation into the claim’s veracity, not an outright rejection..[Read Madras High Court judgment]