The Madras High Court has quashed the chargesheet filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against AG Pon Manickavel, a former Inspector General of Police who headed the Idol Wing, on charges that he “foisted false cases on officers like Kader Batcha to “quench bureaucratic vengeance.”
Idol Wing is a specialised unit that probes theft of antique idols and cultural treasures in Tamil Nadu.
Kader Batcha had filed a petition before the court In 2022, seeking a directive to register a case against Manickavel for falsely implicating him in the case involving the theft of 13 idols from Palavoor temple in Tirunelveli. Kader Batcha alleged a nexus between Manickavel and Deenadayalan (one of the accused in idol theft cases) and the Madras High Court had ordered a CBI probe into the case.
A First Information Report (FIR) was registered against Manickavel on August 8 under Section 173 (cognisable offence) of the Bhartiya Nagrik Suraksha Sahita (BNSS).
Justice RN Manjula of the Madurai bench passed the order quashing the chargesheet while allowing a plea filed by Manickavel. The judge observed that the chargesheet filed against Manickavel did not have a material basis.
Since Batcha denied the allegations and claimed false implication, the high court had directed CBI to conduct a preliminary inquiry and file a report before the trial court. Manickavel claimed that the CBI acted against the direction to file a report, and had instead registered an FIR against him,
The court said that the FIR was redundant as the CBI had acted in excess of its authority. It failed to seek permission from the HC as mandated in the earlier directions given by a division bench in a 2018 case. The court had ordered that no action or inquiry should be initiated against Manickavel or his team without concurrence from the high court according to a report by the New Indian Express.
The judge maintained that since the FIR itself was illegal, the chargesheet filed for the FIR could not be maintained.
Manickavel’s attempts to get a copy of the preliminary report had failed after the additional chief judicial magistrate, Madurai, rejected his request for access. The court observed that Manickavel had the right to contest the FIR but could not do so in the absence of base information used to file the FIR.