Chennai / New Delhi: The Supreme Court has ordered the Tamil Nadu government to file a detailed report on the status of investigations into idol theft cases in the state and the actions taken.
The appeal filed by lawyer Yaanai Rajendran, seeking the formation of a special investigation team to probe the issue of idol smuggling and the disappearance of case files, came up for hearing before a bench of Justices B.V. Nagarathna and R. Mahadevan in the Supreme Court.
Then, appearing on behalf of the petitioner, advocate P.V. Yogeshwaran, representing Elephant Rajendran, said that 41 documents in the idol smuggling case have gone missing, and the Tamil Nadu government has not taken any action on this. Likewise, the stolen ancient idols are in the United States and England. He said no case has been registered regarding this.
In response, Tamil Nadu government advocate P. Karunakaran said, “A special ADGP has been appointed to handle the idol theft case. Therefore, we need 4 weeks’ time to file the information on this as a detailed report.”
Meanwhile, Additional Solicitor General of the Central Government K.M. Nataraj appeared and said that the issue of idol smuggling has assumed major proportions in several states, and that the Central Government is taking steps to recover idols that were smuggled abroad.
Following this, the judges issued the order: The Tamil Nadu government must file a detailed report on the action taken in the idol theft case in Tamil Nadu and on the action taken regarding the disappearance of documents in the idol theft case. The judges, having issued such an order, adjourned the hearing to Nov. 4.