We were invited by a coalition of human rights organisations in Tamil Nadu to conduct an Independent Public Inquest into the death of 17 persons in Tirunelveli. We heard elaborate evidence from eyewitnesses and injured victims. We examined several media reports, photographs and video recordings. We invited all the concerned government department heads, the collector, police officials and members of the public to depose before us.

But no government official or police department official deposed before us, despite allocating a separate day for their depositions at Tirunelveli.

We completed our report and released it at a press conference on October 27, 1999. We concluded that all the deaths (except the child) were caused by trauma prior to the drowning — meaning that the drowning resulting in the deaths was due to fatal beating by the police in the first instance. We submitted two copies of our 266–page report with photographic evidence to the Justice Mohan Commission on December 16, 1999, through VR Lakshmi Narayanan, IPS, former DGP, Tamil Nadu.

Justice Mohan preferred not to take this monumental report on record. He preferred not to call for the examination of the authors of the Public Inquest Report though the investigation had been headed by a former high court judge, a former DGP, a former IAS officer and a former vice–chancellor. The commission refused in all its wisdom to even list this Public Inquest Report as part of the list of 95 Exhibits.

We have studied the Mohan Commission report in detail. We consider the report populist, pro–establishment, sub–standard and lacking in objective judicial temper expected of a former judge of the Supreme Court. The rigour of judicial inquiry as required under the Commission of Inquiry Act 1952 is absent.

While we examined 44 witnesses who participated in the procession, MLAs and political leaders and several among those who suffered injuries due to police excesses, the Justice Mohan Commission examined depositions from 53 witnesses, of which only 12 were eyewitness evidence or witnesses from among those injured. Depositions from seven representatives of political parties were recorded. Several of the other witnesses who deposed were people who were bystanders and not involved in the procession or the injured.

They cannot be considered as eyewitnesses to the brutal police lathicharge at Kokkiraikulam Road because none of them were present at the point of lathicharge.

The authenticity of many of the witnesses are clearly suspect and hence the commission’s report is also suspect and biased. The remaining eleven witnesses were doctors, police officials or government department officials and representatives of the media.

It is pertinent to mention that the counsel for the victims had filed a petition before the commission requesting that all newspapers and electronic media channels be directed to produce all photos and videographs that they had in their possession. Only one private TV channel produced its video. The police who were directed to do so also produced their video after a lapse of three months — two days before the screening, which was on the last days of the commission’s sitting.

The police video depicts normalcy all along the route — shops opened, two–wheelers parked etc., the bandobust police were also walking peacefully. The police video further depicts women police at Kokkira-kulam road totally un–harassed by the crowd in front of them. However, the moment the lathicharge commenced, the recording of the police video stops and recommences almost 20 minutes later with no timing recorded in the video — showing a clear cut in the video recording. This was pointed out to Justice Mohan and yet the commission chose not to mention this in the report revealing the pre–conditioned and biased nature of the hearing of the commission.

There is no comparison anywhere in the report of the video clippings and deposition versions of the victims. In fact the report squarely relies upon the version of a handful of "public witnesses" (bystanders and non–participants in the procession) who were produced before Justice Mohan in–camera during the first days of the commission’s hearing. Due to a public protest against this manner of functioning by the commission, the commission held public hearings thereafter.

One of the conclusions of the commission is that 11 persons died due to drowning and six others died because of injuries sustained at Kokkirakulam Road. But there is no evidence whatsoever in the commission’s report that these six persons were injured on the road and not on the river bed and inside the river due to police excesses.

Thiru Saliash Kumar Yadav, deputy commissioner of police, who was at the scene of the procession and the point at which the police brutal lathicharge took place, all through, states in his deposition before the commission that the tahsildar (executive magistrate) who passed orders at 2.38 pm, 2.39 pm and 2.41pm, declaring the crowd unlawful, ordering tear gas and ordering lathi charge respectively, did so without consulting him.

He further states that there were "commands and sub–commands" indicating that several police officers present were issuing simultaneous orders and things were not under his control. The commission has not referred to this at all because it would prove that the lathicharge on the river bed was real and dictated by multiple police commands.

As many as 631 affidavits of injured persons were filed before the commission. Of these, 31 were made by people with serious injuries admitted in the Government Hospital, Tirunelveli. One of them happened to be Mr. Palani, district secretary, CP I (M), with very severe head injuries. Inspite of all this the commission has not made any reference to any injuries only because all the affidavits, excepting that of Palani, specifically state that they sustained injuries on the eastern bank and few of them on the western bank of Thamiraparani river. Since this would have been conclusive evidence of police brutality on the river banks proving that the 17 deaths claimed to be due to drowning were actually caused by this police brutality in the first instance, prior to people being forced by the police to flee into the river, the commission chose to totally ignore this evidence.

On the basis of the Justice Mohan Commission Report, G.O.No.SSII/264/5 Public (SC) Department dated August 2, 2000 was issued. The recommendations of the commission were accepted in toto. The government accepted the commission of enquiry report in full and recommended that the three officers recommended by the commission for compulsory retirement will be dealt with by the respective department. But no time limit was fixed to award the punishment. The enquiry commission has also recommended that a member of each victim’s family should be provided with a government job depending upon the education qualification and other eligible criteria. The government accepted the recommendation and issued G.O. directing the collector of Tirunelveli district to find suitable jobs for the members of the victim’s family. No time limit has been fixed for this also.

Our experience of official commissions (may be a sitting judge) under the said Act shows that such inquiries tend to be a time consuming affair, all for the benefit of the government. Very often, the government refuses to take any action against the guilty persons, or even to compensate the affected persons, on the pretext that the inquiry is "sub–judice". Such inquiries are not judicial inquiries and the evidence recorded in such inquiries is not taken as evidence in any legal proceedings, thereafter. The reports of such inquiries are not admissible in law.