A day after Tamil Youtuber and whistleblower ‘Savukku’ Shankar began a hunger strike demanding that he be allowed to receive visitors in jail, his mother A Kamala on Saturday, October 1, asked Chief Minister MK Stalin to intervene in the matter. On September 15, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court had sentenced Shankar to six months in prison over his remarks against the judiciary, stating that he had ‘shown no remorse’ despite a history of similar contempt cases. Shankar, in his YouTube channel, had alleged that the entire higher judiciary was riddled with corruption. He was first lodged in the Madurai Central Prison, and was later shifted to the Cuddalore prison citing security reasons.
In a three-page petition to the Chief Minister, Kamala said she had only come to know of her son’s imprisonment in the contempt of court case through the media, further alleging that neither she nor other family members were informed of his shift from Madurai Central jail to Cuddalore. “I requested the higher officials to shift Shankar to the Chennai Puzhal prison, since I couldn't travel to Cuddalore to meet him due to my health condition. But I'm yet to receive any response,” she said.
Kamala pointed out that Shankar was already acquitted from the cases registered against him when he was working with the Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) department, despite which he received a notice dismissing him from his job earlier this month. Shanker, however, refused to accept the notice by hand, and it instead had to be pasted on the wall of his cell. It is learnt that Shankar had later torn up the notice. “Because he refused to receive the notice, the Cuddalore prison officials have prohibited him from receiving visitors for a month,” she said in the petition.
According to Kamala, it is only via the media that she has been receiving any update regarding her son. “The DVAC served him a dismissal notice when he was not in the position of getting any legal aid. Everybody knows how he was sent to jail based on fake cases in the past. Now, he is in a position where he couldn’t appeal against Madurai Bench’s order or at least meet his mother. Even many political party leaders and legal experts have raised concerns over his imprisonment,” she said.
“My son has criticised the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government, party officials and the corruption happening in the construction businesses linked with family members of DMK party officials. The DMK government is taking action against him as part of a political vendetta. Hence, I request Chief Minister MK Stalin to intervene in this matter and take appropriate measures,” she said in the petition.
Shankar was suspended from the DVAC in 2008, for allegedly leaking secret phone conversations of two higher officials of the organisation. He had legally challenged the DVAC's decision to suspend him and was on subsistence allowance. During his contempt hearing, the court had observed that Shankar is a suspended employee of the state government. “He has been receiving a subsistence allowance for the last 13 years and is governed by the Conduct Rules. Yet, he has been attacking all three organs of the state viciously,” the court order had said. Nine days later, DVAC dismissed him from duty.
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