Sexual assault case: Madras HC orders SIT probe

The Madras High Court has formed a Special Investigation Team comprising of women IPS officers to investigate into the alleged sexual assault of a 2nd Year Engineering Student inside the Anna Univeristy campus in Chennai earlier on Monday. A division bench of Justice SM Subramaniam and Justice V Lakshminarayanan held a special sitting on Saturday and passed the orders on a batch of pleas seeking a CBI probe into the incident. The court said that there were lapses on the part of the police and the University and was thus inclined to form the SIT.
The Bench  also ordered the state of Tamil Nadu to pay an interim compensation of Rs 25 lakh to the survivor for the "serious lapse" on the part of the police in revealing her details in the first information report (FIR) made available to the public on the police website,which could be recovered from those who were responsible for the dereliction of duty and leaking of the FIR. The court said that the FIR leak was a serious lapse on the part of the police which caused trauma for the victim and her family.
As per Live Law report, the court asked the University to allow the victim to complete her education without collecting any fees from her including tuition fee, hostel fee, exam fee, miscellaeous fee etc. The court also directed the Director General of Police to pr9ovide interim protection to the victim and her family.The court also remarked that the FIR itself was in the nature of victim blaming portraying as if the girl's actions resulted in the incident. The court emphasised that the society should refrain from victim blaming as it ends up benfitting the perpetrators.

Meanwhile,The National Commission for Women on Saturday constituted a two-member fact finding committee to investigate alleged sexual assault of a 19-year-old student at Anna University in Chennai.The Commission has taken a suo moto cognizance of an alleged sexual assault of a student at Anna University. It has already issued a notice to the Tamil Nadu Director General of Police (DGP) in this regard.