MHC orders TN DGP to ensure 'two-finger test' discontinued
The court also directed the police to come up with a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for conducting Potency Test by merely collecting the blood sample.
TN DGP Shankar Jiwal; Madras High Court (File)
CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has directed the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) Shankar Jiwal to ensure that the two-finger test and the Archaic Potency Test are discontinued.
The court also directed the police to come up with a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for conducting Potency Test by merely collecting the blood sample.
A division bench of the Madras High Court (MHC) comprising Justice N Anand Venkatesh and Justice Sunder Mohan heard special cases about how to handle the relationship cases between juveniles.
The bench on Monday heard two cases pertaining to this issue, a juvenile boy tied "thali" to a juvenile girl in Chidambaram and another case of two juveniles eloping after a love affair in Dharmapuri.
The additional public prosecutor submitted a detailed report about the two cases before the court.
While the closure report of the Chidambaram case reveals the fact that no offense has been made out, the court directed the judicial magistrate of Cuddalore to file and pass appropriate orders. However, going through the report of the Dharmapuri case the court found out that the eloped juvenile girl was lodged in a juvenile home for 10 days and the boy had spent 20 days under a Juvenile probation officer.
The bench observed that both of them are "children" in the eyes of the law whereas the boy was treated as a victim and the girl was treated as a child in conflict with the law.
The court also said that the case must be taken to be a wake-up call to ensure that such incidents at least do not happen in the future.
The court directed the DGP to instruct the Inspector General of Police of various Zones to collect data by going through the medical reports prepared in all cases starting from 01.01.2023, involving sexual offence and see if any report given refers to the Two-Finger test. The bench observed that if any such report is identified, it shall be collected and shall be brought to the notice of this court on receipt of the report, we will pass further orders, ruled the bench.