Red Herrings and secular charlatans

Red Herrings and secular charlatans

‘Jayalalithaa defends Kanchi SP’ was a headline in one of the English newspapers on Monday the 7th February and I am not surprised. Only a charlatan could defend the indefensible. The news report is remarkable for one reason only - that the TN Assembly could be led so easily astray by ‘communal’ red herrings. What may be closer to the truth is that these elected representatives belonging to several parties, because discussing the real issue may expose holes in their own armour, allowed Jayalalithaa to put a ring around their noses and willingly allowed themselves to be led astray. Or worse still, this Assembly probably collectively either lacked the intelligence or the political will (inexcusable both ways) to push Jayalalithaa into a corner over the whole issue of a scum bag called Prem Kumar.

Prem Kumar is the Superintendent of police in Kancheepuram ‘entrusted’ (wrong word) with investigating the Sankararaman murder case. Prem Kumar’s track record as a policeman and the manner of his (read Jayalalithaa’s) treatment of the Kanchi Acharyas are so sordid that an honest and upright Director-General of Police like IK Govind had to be removed from Law and Order to an inconsequential posting where I am sure he will remain until his retirement or for as long as Jayalalithaa remains Chief Minister; whichever is sooner.

Prem Kumar was brought in as SP Kancheepuram by the diabolical Jayalalithaa for his known violent, abusive and intimidating ways. What makes the blood boil is that in doing so Jayalalithaa has perpetrated with impunity not just a patently undemocratic act but an act that ought to have invited a scathing contempt-of-court indictment. Prem Kumar’s abusive and violent conduct with civil society provoked a judge of the Madras High Court to term him ‘barbarian’. Prem Kumar has been indicted for gross intimidation, foisting false cases, obtaining ‘confessions’ under duress for offences and crimes not committed and also for using the print and electronic media to ‘bolster’ false confessions and for disinformation.

It is for these very reasons that Jayalalithaa had Prem Kumar posted as SP of Kancheepuram to probe the Sankararaman murder case. Her intention was to destroy Pujya Jayendra Saraswati Swamigal, break his spirit, destroy the reputation of the Acharyas and the mutt, and ultimately destroy the mutt itself. If she could have her way, she would do anything to make sure that Pujya Acharya languished for as long as possible in jail. But she had no real case against him. And so she needed the scum bag called Prem Kumar to achieve this for her and he for reasons best known to him obliged the woman. His mandate was to manufacture cases using any method to destroy Pujya Acharya’s reputation and to keep him in jail.

In a case that came up for hearing before Justice Karpagavinayakam of the Madras High Court in October 2002, (http://www.vigilonline.com/interact/discuss/discuss.asp?plainSpeakId=21) the judge indicted the scumbag for illegal confinement of Father John Joseph and two nuns of the Charismatic Center – Sister Femina Rose and Sister Sahaya Rani for two days without producing them before the local Magistrate, for torturing them, for physically assaulting them, violating their modesty and dignity and also for using intimidating tactics to obtain confessions. This indictment has been made by Justice Karpagavinayakam in the strongest possible language for any judge. The judge had also directed the CBCID to file a ‘last report’ before the court stating compliance with the Court’s order to initiate prosecution against Prem Kumar.

[48. To sum up:

(i)The first respondent, namely, the State of Tamil Nadu is directed to launch prosecution through C.B.C.I.D. against Premkumar, former D.S.P., Special Branch, Nagercoil and Panneerselvam, former D.S.P. of Nagercoil Town, who were involved in the offences relating to the illegal custody of the injured persons and torture committed on them, especially on women, viz., witness No.4 Sahaya Rani and witness No.5 Femina Rose.

(ii) On passing suitable orders by the State Government, the C.B.C.I.D. shall record the statement of the injured Femina Rose and register F.I.R. against Premkumar and Panneerselvam, the D.S.Ps. for the appropriate offences and shall record the statements of the other injured persons and other witnesses examined before the Principal District Judge, Tirunelveli, the Team of Doctors and any other witnesses to be produced and collect other materials, if any, and launch prosecution against the two named police officials by filing the final report before the appropriate Court within three months from the date of receipt of this order.]

The judge has also passed scathing remarks against Prem Kumar in another case which unfortunately for Prem Kumar had come up for hearing before Justice Karpagavinayakam himself earlier in June 2002. The judge wondered how a policeman facing criminal charges and who was directly recruited into the police force as DSP, could accept promotions under false pretexts and also how he could deliberately not inform the High Court of the same. Justice Karpagavinayakam also wondered how, when the Supreme Court had ordered speedy disposal of these cases and when his rank as DSP had been held to be temporary in view of the cases pending against him, the state government could further promote the scum bag to ASP and later to SP.The judge also declared him 'absconder' with non-bailable warrants issued against him. Prem Kumar was directed by the judge to surrender before the sessions court to get the NBW revoked and then to subject himself to the due process of law.

[ 32. It is further noticed from the diary extract that on 23.4.2001, N.B.W. was again issued against the petitioner (A1) and the same has not been executed till date. This shows that the petitioner has no regard for law and for truth. Thus, it is clear that the petitioner has made an incorrect and false statement to mislead this Court.

38. The fact that N.B.W. issued against the petitioner is pending for more than one year without execution and the failure of the petitioner to surrender before the Court, seeking for withdrawal of the said warrant and the non-appearance of the accused one after another on every hearing would make it clear that the trial is being dragged on for a number of years only at the instance of the accused and not at the instance of the prosecution party. 41. Therefore, the Director General of Police is directed to give suitable direction to the concerned Superintendent of Police to ensure the presence of all the accused, the police personnel in these cases on the relevant dates so that the trial would be over within the time mentioned above. The petitioner and others against whom N.B.Ws. were issued are directed to surrender before the Court concerned along with the petition to recall the N.B.Ws. On their surrender, the trial Court may recall by imposing suitable conditions to ensure their presence before the Court on all the hearing dates.

33. One other aspect is to be noticed in this context. When the appointment of the petitioner as D.S.P. was challenged in writ petition before this Court in W.P.No.11966 of 1985, by the order dated 22.7.199 4, this Court while referring the Rule 10(a)(iv) which provides that, where it is necessary to appoint an officer against whom an enquiry into allegations of corruption or misconduct is pending, the appointing authority may appoint him temporarily pending enquiry into the charges against him, would hold that the appointment cannot be said to be illegal as the appointment has been made only temporary as the criminal cases against him are pending in the Court of Session.

34. As such, the finding given by this Court in the above writ petition that the appointment is only temporary which is subject to the result in the criminal proceedings. But, it is stated by the petitioner in paragraph 3 of his petition that the petitioner was promoted as Additional Superintendent of Police in the year 1998 and further promoted as Superintendent of Police in the year 1999.

35. There are no details in the petition as to how he was promoted even though his appointment as Deputy Superintendent of Police was temporary pending disposal of the criminal cases before the Court of Session. Having obtained the promotion as Superintendent of Police even though his appointment was held to be temporary by this Court, the petitioner instead of bringing to the notice of the writ Court that the order passed by this Court has not been complied with and instead of filing an application for seeking a fresh direction, has approached this Court for the reasons best known to him seeking for quashing alleging that the criminal cases pending against him are unnecessarily dragged on at the instance of Nallakaman with a view to harass the petitioner. This prayer for quashing sought for by the petitioner in this petition would amount to disrespect the orders passed by this Court as well as the Supreme Court earlier.]

Now let us go beyond these horrifying judicial strictures and examine Jayalalithaa’s devilish motives in posting this sleaze as SP Kancheepuram. As the two judgments would indicate, Prem Kumar is known to ill-treat people whom he summons for questioning. He is also known to arrest people and not produce them within 24 hours before a local magistrate as is the law. He is known to physically and verbally abuse these people. He is also known to summon the media and coerce his victims to make ‘confessional’ statements to them. And Prem Kumar’s favourite weapon is always sexual misconduct and threats of rape and/or physical assault.

That an obliging judge in the subordinate courts could actually hand over Pujya Acharya into police custody, into the hands of this scum bag called Prem Kumar takes my breath away. Was not the judge aware of the damning indictment of Prem Kumar by the Madras High Court for violence and physical assault? Had the judge known about Justice Karpagavinayakam’s strictures against Prem Kumar would the judge have still granted police custody of Pujya Acharya to this scum bag? Is there any excuse for the judge not knowing about the Madras High Court’s indictment of Prem Kumar or that the Governor of Tamil Nadu has sanctioned the prosecution of Prem Kumar as directed by the Madras High Court? Or are we to assume that the judge knew about these strictures and nevertheless granted police custody?

When Pujya Acharya’s police custody ended Prem Kumar planted stories in the media about Pujya Acharya having confessed to the crime. There was also this terrible video clipping of Pujya Acharya in the Vellore jail talking in slurred tones, lying supine. It is not difficult to conclude that Pujya Acharya was probably drugged when the video was taken. More to the point, who shot the video? And if this was a police video why was this video ‘released’ to Nakkeeran, a journal as sleazy as Prem Kumar himself? News is, the wife of one of Nakkeeran’s reporters and Prem Kumar’s wife are sisters!

Then we have sordid planted-by-police stories of womanizing and sexual misconduct by Pujya Acharya with one Usha, another Anuradha and yet another Swarnamalya all being dragged and dragging Pujya Acharya through slime. By this time it was obvious that Prem Kumar and his lady boss had no real case against Pujya Acharya and Jayalalithaa’s henchman was only doing what he had been mandated to do – foist cases, obtain confessions under duress and use the media to destroy the reputation of his victims. This was and continues to be Prem Kumar’s modus operandi. The following is the damning indictment of Prem Kumar by Justice Karpagavinayakam again in October 2002.

[It is clear from the observation made by this Court as well as the Supreme Court that if a police officer transgresses the circumscribed limits and illegally exercises his investigatory powers in breach of any statutory provision causing serious prejudice to the personal liberty of a citizen, then the Court on being approached by the person aggrieved shall consider the nature and extent of the breach of the police officer concerned and pass appropriate orders as may be called for without leaving the citizen to the mercy of police echelons, since human dignity is a dear value of our Constitution.

If this sort of inhuman and ill-treatment in the name of interrogation by the police officers, that too at the D.S.P. level is allowed to go on, then there is no protection even to the persons who are innocent. When these atrocities were brought to the notice of this Court, certainly the powers of this Court have got to be exercised to give appropriate orders so that the members of the Law Enforcing Agency will know their limit. The people also would feel and hope that they would be protected as per the rights guaranteed under the Constitution by arms of law through the appropriate orders passed by this Court by invoking the powers under Article 226 of the Constitution.

The role played by the police officers in this case would make this Court to think that these officials have behaved like barbarians without giving any respect to human dignity, that too with the ladies Sahaya Rani and Femina Rose who are regarded as sisters. As a matter of fact, these people were compelled to give statements to Press persons who took video. This Court earlier dealt with the bail application by some of the accused in this case and had an occasion to see the said video in order to show whether those statements were obtained by threat or coercion. On seeing the Video, this Court was unable to come to the conclusion that there was any threat since only some of the portions of the statements were shown to this Court. This Court is unable to understand as to why the Press Reporters were allowed to take Video. Admittedly, the Video was not taken by the Law Enforcing Agency. Strangely, the Superintendent of Police has filed an affidavit before this Court in this writ petition stating that the Video was taken by the Press Persons in spite of the objection raised by the police. This statement of Superintendent of Police cannot be true. When the objection was raised by the police, how the Press Reporters could record statement of these injured persons through Video? In the bail application, this Court was requested by the Public Prosecutor to witness the Video. If such an objection was raised by the police, there was no necessity to keep that Video with them. These are all would show that the police agency wanted to mislead the Court by giving the false particulars by showing the Video.]

Every sane person who saw the video clipping featured on every gloating satellite channel would have asserted that the video was doctored and unnatural in the extreme. They say habitual and hardened criminals always have a signature modus operandi. The course that the Sankararaman murder investigation traversed has Prem Kumar’s fingerprints and signature all over. I have been wondering why Justice Karpagavinayakam has so far not taken suo moto notice of press reports about the course of the case and have Prem Kumar removed from the case in the best interests of truth and justice.

I can even understand that Jayalalithaa, as is her wont, has scant respect for truth or justice or even the law and the judiciary. But I find this absolutely mind-boggling that having launched prosecution against a policeman in compliance with a court order, the state government will then go on to use the same twice damned policeman in an extremely sensitive murder investigation. The following are the details of the Government Order (GO) launching prosecution against Prem Kumar:

[Home (SC) Department. (SC is strictly confidential)
GO # 3D {67} dated 21st May, 2003
Ref. 1: Order dated 3-10-2002 of the High Court of Madras in WP (writ petition) # 15596/97 filed by Thiru John Joseph.
Ref. 2: From the Addl. DGP Crime Branch CID Chennai, letter RC # C6/5/016523/2002 dated 12-4-2003 received with DGP’s letter RC # 3382/231132/CRIME III (2/2002 dated 25-4-2003)
Abstract: Prosecution – police department – Thiru K Prem Kumar, formerly DSP, now SP, Coastal Security Group, Chennai – Allegations of criminal conspiracy and abetment of criminal misconduct – sanction of prosecution under Sec. 197 (1) (b) Cr. PC – accorded]

As seen, the Governor has ordered the state government to prosecute Prem Kumar for criminal conspiracy and criminal misconduct in 2003. It was Jayalalithaa’s government then. So what does it say for her pious protestations about all of us being equal before the law, that the law must take its own course and about the majesty of the law. Above all what does it say about the Assembly of idiots who made passionate speeches about the secular credentials of Prem Kumar who placed the charge sheet against Pujya Acharyas and 26 others at the feet of Lord Varadaraja of Kancheepuram before lodging it with the courts. Not one member of this august Assembly had the wits to demand Prem Kumar’s scalp or Jayalalithaa’s head for his continuance in the TN police force or for Jayalalithaa using him for all the dirty reasons.

For these elected representatives that Prem Kumar placed the charge sheet at the feet of the Lord was more important than the fact that he has been found guilty of barbarism and criminal misconduct by the Madras High Court. Secular charlatans all of them. The next time some ass tells you all that the law is majestic or that the law must take its own course or that all are equal before the law, do take the law into your own hands folks and deal appropriately with these scoundrels. The law will be safer in your hands than in the hands of police men like Prem Kumar or the judge who handed Pujya Acharya into Prem Kumar’s police custody.

[42. Before parting with this case, it shall be mentioned that there are very serious allegations against the petitioner, who is stated to have severely beaten the Ex-serviceman and his wife, a Teacher at the police station causing grievous hurt. It is shocking to see from the complaints of Nallakaman and the R.D.O., the petitioner disrobed the saree of the woman Teacher at the police station and attempted to remove her Thali (Mangalya Sutra). It is further stated that she was brutally beaten and the second respondent with the handcuffs was taken outside the police station and was paraded up to the Bus Stand and in the presence of the public, he was continuously beaten. Only on the agitation of the public, the District Collector intervened, as a result of which, an enquiry was conducted by the R.D.O. after examining 83 witnesses.

43. If these allegations are true and proved before the Court of law, it would be shameful to find that a person like the petitioner has been allowed to work in the Police Department. In the light of the very serious allegation, the trial Court should see that the trial is to go on preferably on day-to-day basis and the same is finished of within the time schedule.

44. As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court by the order dated 7.11.19 89 would specifically observe that all the three cases to be tried together. This Court also by the order dated 22.7.1994 directed the trial Court to dispose of the matters on or before 31.3.1995. Despite these directions, the trial Court was not allowed to be proceeded with. Therefore, this Court is constrained to give a fresh direction hoping that at least the direction given now would be complied with.]

And that is what we want to know from the CM and the DGP. Have they complied with the court order? And if they haven’t why can we not demand their removal? More to the point, why is the TN Assembly, specifically the DMK, the BJP and all other anti-Jayalalithaa parties and politicians silent on the issue? What are we to make of it? That they think playing the ‘secular’ card will win them more votes than standing on the side of righteousness, probity in public life, and respecting Hindu sensibilities? It would seem so. And Hindus have only themselves to blame that Indian polity doesn’t think it needs them for survival.

17th February, 2005.