The Madras High Court on Monday said that it decided to take up the hearing on a petition seeking re-opening of the probe into the Thoothukudi Sterlite Firing as a “mission” to ensure that such an incident was never repeated..A bench of Justices SS Sundar and N Senthil Kumar granted three months to the Tamil Nadu Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) to investigate the assets of police and Revenue personnel posted in Thoothukudi in 2018 at the time of the police firing at the Sterlite copper plant there that killed 13 unarmed people.The Court granted the time following a request made by Additional Advocate General J Ravindran.The Court also said the DVAC must conduct a fair and independent probe..“Monetary aid will not compensate the loss of human lives. One individual was able to do all these things. It should not recur. That is why we have taken up this mission,” the Court said..The Court was hearing a petition filed by activist Henri Tiphagne seeking directions to reopen the probe into the incident by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). The probe by NHRC was closed on October 25, 2018.Tiphagne had filed the petition in 2021 challenging the NHRC’s decision to abruptly close its suo motu probe into the incident.The 2018 protests were against the Sterlite Copper plant, a unit of Vedanta Limited. The Sterlite plant was the largest copper smelter in the country until its closure in 2018. At the time of the incident, the protestors had been demanding that the plant be shut down as it was causing environmental damage to the area..During the previous hearing on July 15, the bench had said that the firing by the police on unarmed protestors was carried out at the behest of “one industrialist,”.The Court had then directed the DVAC to begin a probe into the assets accumulated by the police and Revenue officials posted in Thoothukudi at the time.
