Vengaivayal human faeces case: Charge sheet filed against three persons, CB-CID informs Madras High Court

CB-CID claims to have solved the 2022 Vengaivayal human faeces case, files charge sheet against three individuals

The Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) on Friday informed the Madras High Court of having solved the 2022 Vengaivayal human faeces in overhead water tank case. It said a charge sheet was also filed against three individuals before a special court for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act cases in Pudukkottai on January 20, 2025.

Appearing before the First Division Bench of Chief Justice K.R. Shriram and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, Additional Advocate-General J. Ravindran said the charge sheet had been filed against J. Muraliraja, 33, B. Sudharshan, 21, and K. Muthukrishnan, 23, under Sections 277 (defiling water), 427 (committing mischief), and 201 (destroying evidence), read with Section 109 (abetment), of the Indian Penal Code.

The submission was made at the hearing of two public interest litigation petitions filed by lawyers K. Rajkamal and Marx Raveendran alias V. Raveendran. They had filed the petitions in 2023 seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incident. Advocate G.S. Mani, representing the second petitioner, told the court that the real culprits do not appear to have been named in the final report filed by the CB-CID.

Wondering why the CB-CID had not invoked the SC/ST Act against the three individuals and why it had not disclosed the community to which they belonged, counsel feared that the investigators were attempting to project it rather as a case of enmity between the three individuals and the husband of a local panchayat president than as a case of atrocity committed against the Scheduled Caste residents.

However, when the Chief Justice pointed out that the High Court, while dealing with public interest litigation petitions, could not micro-manage the criminal proceedings and that a protest petition could be filed before the special court if anyone was aggrieved by the charge sheet, Mr. Mani sought time to file a detailed reply to an affidavit filed by the investigating officer attached to the CB-CID.

The judges accepted his request and adjourned the PIL petitions for further hearing to March 27, 2025. Earlier, the AAG told the court that it was in December 2022 that the human faeces were found floating in the overhead water tank built by the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage (TWAD) Board, under the Cauvery Combined Water Supply Scheme, at Vengaivayal hamlet in the Kulathur taluk of Pudukkottai district.

R. Kanagaraj, a local resident, lodged a complaint with the Vellanur police about a few children in the hamlet having fallen ill after consuming the defiled water from the overhead tank. He also claimed that some youngsters from the village had climbed up and spotted human faeces floating in the tank. Photographs shot by those youngsters were circulated widely in the social media.