Madras High Court directs petitioner to pay ₹35,000 to police personnel for making false allegations against them

The Madras High Court recently directed a petitioner in a case to deposit a sum of ₹35,000 with the Chennai Commissioner of Police for making false allegations against police personnel [M Kala v The State]..Single-judge Justice SM Subramaniam directed the Commissioner to then distribute the amount equally among the seven police personnel against whom the petitioner, an 'illegal' children's home, had made false allegations.The Court in its order passed on November 18 also deprecated the "growing trend" of levelling false allegations against police personnel."Growing trend of accusing the police personnel on registration of criminal case by the offenders at no circumstances can be tolerated by the Courts. Practice of filing writ petitions against the police officials unnecessarily without any substance is increasing in recent days. Whenever the police officials initiate actions under law and by following the procedures, in order to escape from the clutches of law, these offenders are filing writ petitions against the police officials with false allegations," the order said. The observations were made while dismissing a petition filed by a city resident who runs an orphanage. The petitioner had alleged that the police had raided his orphanage without following due procedure and breached his rights. The State government, however, told the Court that the said orphanage was being run illegally. A child had been kept there illegally and following a habeas corpus case filed by the child's mother, a team of seven police officers had gone there and rescued the child. The present petition, thus, was a case of malafide litigation, the State told the Court. .The Court examined the records and agreed with the State's submissions.It said that such false cases cause much mental agony to police personnel and affect their performance in maintaining the law and order situation in the State. "The accused persons or their relatives are frequently filing writ petitions with an idea to discourage the Police authorities and to morally weaken them for their gains and to escape from the clutches of the criminal proceedings," the Court said.It, therefore, dismissed the petition and ordered that all the seven police personnel accused by the petitioner be paid ₹5,000 each by the petitioner..Advocate A Muruganandam appeared for the petitioner. Advocates S Rajesh, R Ganeshkumar, M Ganesh, and M Deivanandam appeared for the respondents.[Read Order]