HC order on plea for SIT probe into Dalit youth's death

The Madras High Court on Monday told a Dalit man, who sought an Special Investigation Team (SIT) probe into the mysterious death of his son in 2013, to wait till a compliance report was filed by the state authorities in connected matters.

When the petition by T Elango, father of the deceased Ilavarasan came up for hearing, the bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice R Mahadevan said it had posted to September 9 the connected matters and asked the authorities to file a compliance report.

"The present case relates to the same incident and seeks transfer of investigation to SIT. Once we have the compliance in respect of directions issued in that (earlier) matter, this issue may be examined whether SIT may be necessary to carry out investigation," the court said and asked the petitioner to wait till the compliance report was filed.

The petition relates to the death of Ilavarasan, a Dalit youth in 2013 whose body was found near a railway track in Dharmapuri District. After Ilavarasan's marriage with Divya, a caste Hindu girl in 2012, some Dalit colonies in the district had witnessed violence.

Among the connected matters referred by the court included petitions by several persons seeking relief in connection with the attacks on Dalit colonies.

Petitions and Public Interest Litigations were also filed in the high court on the same issue, seeking response from departments of the central and state governments to protect, rehabilitate and provide relief to those affected.

While dealing with such petitions, the bench had last month said a mindless frenzy had taken place resulting in loss of property including burning down of 326 houses in three villages.

"If we may say, it amounted to complete collapse of administration," court had said censuring the Tamil Nadu government over administrative lapses and asked it filed a compliance report on September 9, 2016.