Plea seeks probe into missing idol case diaries

A division bench comprising Justice M Sathyanarayanan and Justice R Hemalatha before whom the plea came up on Tuesday, acceded to the request for time sought by Additional Advocate General PH Arvindh Pandian to a file status report with supporting documents on the allegations levelled, and posted the matter to March 31 for further hearing.

The bench also directed the Home Secretary, Director General of Police and the Commissioner, Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) Department, to file their replies by then.

The petitioner, Advocate ‘Elephant’ G Rajendran, had submitted that 41 cases relating to theft of temple idols, misappropriation of temple jewels and properties have been closed on the basis that the case files had gone missing.

Alleging that whole episode of closing the cases has been stage managed to enable the culprits to go scot free, the petitioner said case dairy files were valuable properties of the police stations. He added that such thefts were happening at the police stations by insiders, which he said was at the behest of senior police officers.