Overview

• A bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and N V Anjaria ordered the CBI investigation and set up a three-member monitoring panel led by former Supreme Court judge Ajay Rastogi, with two senior IPS officers not native to Tamil Nadu.
• The directive replaces the Madras High Court–constituted SIT led by IPS officer Asra Garg, with the Supreme Court questioning the High Court’s procedural propriety and jurisdictional approach.
• The court underscored that a fair, impartial probe is a citizen’s right and sought clarifications on issues such as late-night post-mortems and the permission granted for the rally venue.
• Police accounts record 41 deaths and many injured after roughly 27,000 people gathered at Vijay’s TVK event despite permission for about 10,000, with alleged crowd-control lapses cited.
• An FIR names TVK organisers on charges including culpable homicide and endangering life, while two bereaved families say CBI-plea petitions were filed in their names without their consent.