The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has questioned the Tamil Nadu government on why it dropped further departmental action against three senior officials in the Thoothukudi firing case.
The matter came up before a division bench of Justices C.V. Karthikeyan and R. Sakthivel. Advocate General Vijay Narayan appeared and filed a status report referring to the Aruna Jagadeesan Commission report, which the government accepted in 2022.
According to the report placed before the court, the commission had recommended action against 17 police officers, the then district collector and three revenue officials, besides compensation of Rs 50 lakh each to families of the deceased and Rs 15 lakh each to the injured. Departmental proceedings were initiated against the then collector Venkatesh, South Zone IG Shailesh Kumar Yadav and Tirunelveli DIG Kapil Kumar Sarathkar, but further action was later dropped in 2024 and 2025.
The status report also detailed the progress of proceedings against other personnel, including issuance of a charge memo to then SP Mahendran and ongoing steps to rectify deficiencies in the inquiry report. It said compensation of Rs 20 lakh each has been paid to families of the deceased and amounts to the injured based on the nature of injuries, with a government order issued for an additional Rs 5 lakh for each deceased family. The government has provided jobs to 21 persons from affected families, and the CBI has filed a charge sheet in a Madurai court against Inspector Thirumalai.
The bench directed the State to clearly explain, by September 10, the basis on which it decided to drop further action against the three IAS/IPS officers. Petitioners were also asked to file their response.
