"The matter called for investigation & not outright rejection," Madras HC says police should have goaded investigation
The Madras High Court's Madurai Bench has transferred the death case of the 17-year girl from Thanjavur to the Central Bureau of Investigation. The death of the child is alleged to be a suicide over suspicion of a fraudulent and forceful religious conversion. The Court has found merit in the contention of the petitioner, the father of the late minor girl, that instead of finding out truth, the police has been trying to bolster the counter narrative of the Step mother's harassment angle towards her.
"I hope investigation by CBI will bring out the truth," said Justice GR Swaminathan in a comprehensive judgment in which he reasons out as to why the same is necessary and the state police is not fit to carry out the further investigation in the sensitive case.
Justice GR Swaminathan in the judgment has dug out several references from pop culture to show that attempts to convert are a possibility such as when some state legislatures passed laws for banning forcible conversions, they were challenged before the Hon'ble Supreme Court in the case Rev. Stainislaus V. State of Madhya Pradesh and others where the bench had noted that,
“The right to propagate one's religion as enshrined in Article 25 of the Constitution means the right to convert a person to one's own religion. Of course, the Hon'ble Supreme Court rejected the said submission by holding that the expression “propagate” used in Article 25(1) would not encompass the right to convert and there is no fundamental right to convert another person to one's own religion.”
Justice Swaminathan goes on to state that above case was argued by Shri.Frank Anthony who was also a member of Constituent Assembly and if one reads the views expressed by some of the Christian members of the Constituent Assembly, one would note that some of them had even batted for the right to convert even minor children.
Conversion angle called for investigation, not outright rejection -
More than anything else, Justice Swaminathan stated that the place where the school was situated was known as Michealpatti. According to him that could not have been the original name. He went on to state that, there was an interesting discussion as to how the various areas in Chennai acquired their respective names in V.Sriram's “Chennai”. This suggested that someone could undertake a similar exercise for Michealpatti also.
“Therefore, there was nothing inherently improbable in the allegation that there was an attempt at conversion. It could be true or false. The matter called for investigation and not outright rejection,” the judge opined.
Superintendent of police should have goaded the investigation
As per the bench, the District Superintendent instead of directing the jurisdictional police to conduct investigation chose to proclaim that the preliminary investigation has ruled out the conversion angle.
“If she had before her only three materials, namely, First Information Report, police video and the dying declaration, she would have been justified in stating that till then, the religious angle had not come out. But the truth of the matter is that she had before her two more materials, namely, the private video and the parents' petition,” asserted the bench.
Instead of ordering the investigation officer to take the additional materials to account, the S.P directed the local police to register an FIR against the person who had taken the video.
The Superintendent of Police was right in her contention that circulation of the video without suppressing the identity of the child victim clearly contravened Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children), Act 2015. If the First Information Report had been confined only to Section 74, one could understand. But then, the First Information Report came to be registered for I.P.C. Offences such as 153, 504, 505(1)(b) and 505(2) of I.P.C.
The bench noted that the inclusion of the above mentioned offences indicated that the Superintendent of Police wanted to silence any discussion regarding the conversion angle.
The person who shot the video did not commit any offence as such. It was only the subsequent sharing on the social media without suppressing the identity of the child victim which attracts the offence under Section 74 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.But in the present case, the shooting was done at the instance of the petitioner, the father of the child. Hence, the authenticity of the video had been admitted.
The Bench finally noted that, with the experience, the SP obviously knew that the video was authentic. The video footage circulated in the social media was truncated. The earlier and the later portions had been omitted. But that would not make the video any less authentic. Further, the S.P virtually threatened the person who shot the video. Instead, she should have goaded the investigation to take the religious angle into account.
Case Title: Muruganantham Vs. DG of Police & Ors.