The High Court of Madras pulled up the Govt. of Tamil Nadu as well as the Centre on the issue of missing fishermen off the Tamil Nadu coast in the aftermath of ‘Cyclone Ockhi’ which hit the Tamil Nadu and Kerala coast three weeks back.

It ordered issuance of notices to both the State/Central Governments while taking up a petition filed with by a Kanniyakumari resident. A Bench comprising Justice R Subbiah and Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandra took serious view in the matter and asked the Centre and the State to respond to the notice within 48 hours i.e. by Thursday (21st December).

Anto Lenin, the petitioner, drew the attention of the Court to the fact that thousands of fishermen living along the coast of the District had ventured into the seas for deep-sea fishing on 29-30 November. “Timely warning about the impending cyclone was issued neither by the Centre nor by the State and those who had already ventured into the seas were, thus, unaware of the cyclone and were sucked into it,” the petition said.

“No effort was made soon after the cyclone died down to trace the missing fishermen using helicopters. If it had been done, many fishermen could have been rescued,” he told the Court and added that as many as 551 fishermen were missing as per a survey conducted during 03-11 December.