Order cutting cops increment upheld

CHENNAI:  The Madras High Court has refused to quash an order dated May 21, 2002 of the Home Secretary (Police-2), imposing a punishment of stoppage of increment for two years with cumulative effect on a sub-inspector of police and another consequential order dated October 13, 2003 rejecting his revision petition.The charge against M Lakshmanan, SI attached to Padalur police station in Villupuram district, was that he interrogated a woman in the police station in the midnight of June 25, 1999.While working in the station, he received a complaint about five girls, studying in the Government Higher Secondary School in Padalur, missing from June 22, 1999. It was alleged that he interrogated a woman in the midnight of June 25, 1999. Lakshmanan submitted that the woman offered to depose on her own volition, but the court rejected his stand.