The Supreme Court on Monday stayed an order by the Madras High Court directing the Tamil Nadu Police to conduct a departmental inquiry after a first information report in the sexual assault case of a student from Anna University was leaked, Live Law reported.

A bench of Justices BV Nagarathna and Satish Chandra Sharma was hearing a petition filed by the Tamil Nadu government seeking the expunction of the remarks made by the High Court about the police in the matter. The bench stayed the remarks and issued notice to the respondents in the petition.

On December 28, the High Court ordered the state government to pay Rs 25 lakh as compensation to the student who had filed a complaint after she was allegedly sexually assaulted inside the Anna University campus in Chennai.

The order came as the FIR based on the complaint was leaked, revealing the identity of the student. The police had earlier uploaded a copy of the FIR online, which contained the private details of the complainant, but later deleted it.

The leak had caused the complainant “trauma and humiliation”, the High Court said.

The High Court also constituted an all-woman Special Investigation Team to probe the sexual assault case. It criticised Chennai Police Commissioner A Arun for allegedly mishandling the probe and raised questions about his conduct during the initial stages of the investigation.

It also expressed shock over the language used in the FIR, stating that it amounted to victim-shaming, and directed a departmental inquiry into the leak.

In the Supreme Court, Senior Advocates Mukul Rohatgi and Siddharth Luthra, representing the Tamil Nadu government, told the bench on Monday that the lapses cannot be attributed to Arun because the FIR uploaded on the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems had blocked personal details.

The Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems is a centralised online platform that connects all police stations in India.

The senior advocates attributed the personal details of the student to a technical glitch and told the bench that it had occurred because the system was migrating from the older criminal codes to newer ones.

The state government also wrote to the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems to block the details of the FIR, Rohatgi said, adding that another FIR was filed against unknown persons for the leak.

Luthra said that all the links through which the FIR could have been downloaded had been blocked, Live Law reported.

The bench then said that the Special Investigation Team would continue its investigation into the sexual assault case. However, it stayed portions of the High Court order, including paragraph 29(9), which put the responsibility for the lapses on the police officer, according to Live Law.

Paragraph 29(9) of the order said: “The respondents 1 and 2 are directed to conduct a departmental inquiry regarding leaking of FIR and initiate departmental disciplinary proceedings against the officials, who all are responsible and accountable for lapses, negligence and dereliction of duty under relevant service rules.”

Nagarathna also noted that secondary trauma was caused to the student regardless of the reason for the leak.

According to the FIR, the accused 37-year-old Gnanasekaran had allegedly filmed the student and her partner on the university campus and then threatened to leak the footage to the dean and the couple’s parents if they didn’t comply with his demands.

Gnanasekaran allegedly took the complainant to a remote location, where he first blackmailed her before sexually assaulting her, between 7.45 pm and 8.20 pm on Monday. The FIR states that the accused illegally held the student in his custody for 40 minutes.

The incident had taken place on December 24 on the university campus, The Hindu reported.