Student's suicide: TN govt opposes plea for CBI probe

The Tamil Nadu government on Friday opposed in the Madras High Court a PIL seeking a CBI probe into the recent suicide by a woman student of IIT-Madras, saying the investigation was being carried out by a senior police officer and monitored by an Assistant Commissioner.

The submission was made before a bench of justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Seshasayee during the hearing of the public interest litigation petition by the Tamil Nadu National Students Union of India seeking transfer of the case from the Central Crime Branch to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Describing the PIL as "premature", the government advocate said the present investigation was being done by an officer in the rank of Additional Superintendent of Police and monitored by the CCB Additional Commissioner of Police, who himself had served in the CBI.

The bench which heard the arguments reserved its orders on the PIL. The matter related to the suicide by Fathima Latheef, a first-year humanities student in the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, at her hostel on November 9 over which the students and political parties including the DMK have staged protests. Her Kerala-based family has alleged a senior faculty was responsible for her taking the extreme step.

The state government had earlier transferred the case from local police to the Central Crime Branch. The petitioner has submitted that between April 2018 and this month, a total of five students of the IIT-M had committed suicide on the campus and contended no effective redressal steps had been taken by the management.

The PIL claimed that the students have no faith in the state police and hence it was necessary to transfer the investigation to CBI. Though a special team appointed by the police was conducting the investigation, it would lack credibility since the issue has raised several doubts among the public, it contended.