New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on petitions against an order passed by the Madras High Court appointing Pon Manickavel, Inspector General of Police, probing idol theft cases in Tamil Nadu, as a special officer for a period of one year to conduct the probe. This order was given on the day of his retirement on November 30, 2018.

A Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan and K.M. Joseph reserved verdict at the conclusion of arguments from Attorney General K.K. Venugopal for Tamil Nadu, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi for the State DGP, senior counsel Basant, Elephant Rajendran, G.S. Mani for Traffic Ramaswamy.

The Bench while reserving the verdict indicated that Pon Manickavel would be allowed to continue and supervise the investigation into the various cases. The Bench took note of the fact that the officer was willing to serve the organization even without a salary.

The State and the DGP strongly opposed his continuance, as there are several other officers who are competent to continue the investigation.

The High Court passed the order following Pon Manickavel's aggressiveness in unearthing large number of idol thefts.

He and his team had also been carrying out searches on top industrialists related to the thefts.

The High Court also quashed the State government's order issued on August 1, 2018 of transferring all pending and future idol theft cases to the Central Bureau of Investigation from the idol wing CID. This was based on a PIL filed by Advocate Elephant G Rajendran challenging the transfer. The State opposed the High Court for ordering a CBI probe and pleaded for quashing this order.