MP refused anticipatory bail in lawyer house attack case

After the expulsion of Sasikala Pushpa from AIADMK, her maid had submitted a petition to the Thoothukudi SP claiming that she was sexually harassed by Sasikala Pushpa, her husband, Lingeshwaran, and her son, Pradeep Kumar. Following her petition a case was filed by the Pudukottai All Woman police personnel. Sasikala had approached the Supreme Court and had sought protection from arrest for two consecutive six-week periods. In the meantime, she also moved anticipatory bail in the sexual harassment case filed against her. 

Advocate Suganthi who had appeared for the maid had strongly rejected the bail petition and owing to it she was not given bail. When the case was not in the favour of Sasikala Pushpa, Advocate Suganthi’s house, at Thisayanvilai in Tirunelveli district, was ransacked. Suganthi filed a complaint at the Tirunelveli SP office. Following the complaint, a case was registered against Sasikala Pushpa and three of his supporters, Hari Nadar, Ramalingam and Sathiya Chithra Kumar. 

Sasikala again filed an anticipatory bail in the case of woman advocate’s house ransacking case. The case was heard on Friday. In the hearing, the Court rejected the bail petition of Sasikala and three of her supporters. However, her husband and her son were granted bail. They were then directed to appear at the Nanguneri Court in Tirunelveli district. They were directed to pay a surety of Rs.50,000 and sign the condition bail at the Thisayanvilai Police station for two times a day.

State government was warned of court contempt action for providing wrong data at the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) in connection to case pertaining to the status of toilets in the government schools across the state. 

Anand Raj, in his petition, had claimed that across the state toilet facilities in most of the government schools are not proper. Either there is no proper toilet or there is no proper water supply or there are no sanitary workers. Even the incinerator machines, used to burn the used diapers, are not functional. Based on the petition, the High Court appointed three Advocate Commissioners and asked them to take sample surveys in Madurai, Dindigul and Thanjavur districts. All the surveys pointed to bad and inadequate conditions in toilets in the government schools. The Secretary of School Education Department was asked to appear in the Court. 

In the counter affidavit filed by the secretary he had mentioned that there are 28,25,769 students studying in the government schools in the state and if one toilet per 20 students is calculated there should be 1,41,288 toilets. But there are only 66,610 toilets. But the Court came down strongly on the Secretary claiming that on February 21, 2016, the Director of School Education, in the High Court, had claimed that there are no shortage of toilet facilities in the state. There is contradiction in the data and the court was misled by the official. It also asked the Assistant Advocate General how much time was required to complete construction of the remaining toilets. He replied that he would require at least three years. The court said that three years was too much and  they should complete the  construction by the next  financial year. But the AAG replied that the state government had allotted funds to construct only 22,000 toilets in the current financial year and hence it was not possible to construct so many toilets. On hearing the argument Judges adjourned the case to November 26.