Madras High Court Rejects Youtuber Savukku Shankar's Plea Alleging Police Interference In His Media Company, Expedites Probe

“Since there are several complaints against the Petitioner (Shankar) which are under investigation, prima facie there is no material to show that the 3rd respondent (Commissioner) is interfering with the functioning of the petitioner organisation,” the court said.

Justice Velmurugan was hearing a petition filed by Shankar alleging that the Commissioner was subjecting him and his employees to various unlawful actions since he had been exposing police atrocities and misconduct through his YouTube channel. He had alleged that the police had been tracking his movements and subjecting him to harassment.

Shankar had also submitted that he had made complaints to the Home Secretary who was the Chairperson of the State Police Complaints Authority and the authority to handle complaints. Shankar also informed the court that he had made complaints to the DGP to take appropriate action against the commissioner and to prevent him from interfering with the functioning of his media company. Since no action had been taken on these complaints, Shankar had filed the present plea.

When the matter was taken up, Additional Advocate General J Ravindran informed the court that the Home Secretary and the DGP had conducted an enquiry and passed a final order on the complaint. However, Shankar's counsel informed the court that they had not received copy of the order. The AAG informed that a copy of the order has been forwarded to Shankar.

After perusing the order, the court observed that since the orders have been passed on Shankar's complaint, he could work out his remedy under law if he was aggrieved by the order. The court was thus inclined to dismiss the plea giving liberty to Shankar to work out his remedy as per law.

In the previous hearing, the court had directed the Director General of Police to give details of the cases pending against Shankar, cases in which the investigation had been completed, the cases in which final report had been filed, and the cases in which the trial had commenced.

Yesterday, the DGP informed the court that 38 criminal cases were pending against Shankar in which 13 cases were under investigation, 24 were pending trial, and one case was closed as mistake of fact. The court then ordered the jurisdictional police to complete the investigation in cases against Shankar within 4 months. The court also asked the concerned Magistrates to expedite the case and dispose it within a period of 6 months.

Case Title: A Shankar @ Savukku Shankar v. The Secretary to Government and Others

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Mad) 258

Case No: WP Crl 255 of 2025