Chennai: A special team of doctors from the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital (RGGGH) filed its report before Madras high court on the medical condition of YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar, who is out on bail on medical grounds. The team was constituted in view of a direction issued by the court.Taking the report on record, a division bench of Justice P Velmurugan and Justice M Jothiraman granted time for both the state and the mother of Shankar, on whose habeas corpus plea the bail was granted, to file their objections, if any, to the report by Feb 9.
The bench also admitted an impleading petition moved by Shankar to add him as a party to the plea moved by his mother, and an application seeking review of a series of additional conditions imposed on him by the court. One of the new conditions restrained his movement for reasons other than medical and legal assistance.The bench wondered whether the Supreme Court granted liberty to file the review, as the petitioner had already approached the apex court against the order of the court.When senior counsel V Raghavachari, representing Shankar, tried to explain the stand of his client, the bench said, “If he (Shankar) dislikes this bench, we are not concerned about it. We are just performing our duties. We treat all the cases before us in a similar manner. We do not give preference to any matter.”Pointing out that portions of the observations made by the bench during the earlier hearings were recorded and circulated on social media, the court said, “We do not intend to spend our time responding to such actions. We do not want to talk about a person and make him a ‘great person’.”The court then directed the state to file its response to the impleading and review applications moved by Shankar, and adjourned the hearing to Feb 9.
