Acquittal apart, cops told to pay up

CHENNAI: The state government orders directing the Director General of Police to recover compensation amount from salaries of police personnel in connection with a custodial death case have been upheld by the Madras High Court.Justice K Chandru upheld the orders while dismissing a writ petition from S Ganesan, M Nagarajan and N Chandran, policemen attached to Royapettah station, challenging the government order. The case relates to the custodial death of Wilson of Royapettah. He was taken into custody by police on June 21, 1993 on a complaint from the crew of the then Pallavan Transport Express Wing bus. He was allegedly beaten to death on June 22, 1993 while in custody.Accepting the report of the District Collector, the State granted an ex-gratia payment of Rs 50,000 to the family of the deceased. On a petition from Meena, mother of Wilson, the High Court on March 4, 2004 awarded a compensation of Rs 4.30 lakh. After making the payment, the government issued the impugned order directing the DGP to recover the amount from five policemen allegedly responsible for Wilson’s death.Petitioners contended that both in the criminal court as well as in the departmental proceedings, they were acquitted, and  there was no case for recovering the amount from them. However, the judge said the fact that they were let off in the disciplinary proceedings or that they were acquitted by the criminal court was not a ground to deny compensation.The judge said that the petitioners were very much before the court when the petition was filed by Meena and the court directed the State to recover the amount from the petitioners. While the State did not prefer any appeal, nothing prevented the petitioners from filing an appeal to challenge the findings rendered by the High Court as well as the direction to recover the amount from each of them, the judge said.