Walayar Rape Case | Victims' Mother Seeks Monitoring Of CBI Investigation By Kerala High Court

The mother of the two minor girls in the Walayar rape case has approached the Kerala High Court seeking monitoring of the probe being conducted by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The matter was listed before Justice Kauser Edappagath today. The court said it would take up the case after two weeks.

The prosecution case was that the accused persons had trespassed into the shed where the deceased minor girls were residing with their family, since April 2016, on various occasions, and had subjected the girls to rape, and it was on account of the sexual assault and harassment that the minor girls committed suicide by hanging themselves. The girls, aged 13 and 9 years, were found hanging in the shed. 

The plea moved through Advocates Jeevesh and C.K. Radhakrishnan argues that CBI has submitted "four perfunctory charge sheets" without conducting proper and efficient investigation. The petition points out that the lower court had also not accepted the said charge-sheets, and had observed that, "this is a case where there was no investigation at all, much less any fair and proper investigation, and the final report was filed arraigning the persons as the accused solely based on suspicion".

The court below had also observed that there had been "callous indifference and negligence" on the part of the investigating agency in conducting the probe and a "defective and sloppy investigation" had been done, according to the petition. 

The petition avers that there are sufficient materials to suspect the instant case was a homicide, but the investigation agency has not paid attention to any of those aspects. 

"The subsequent suspicious deaths of two accused persons, and various diary statements and scientific reports lead to the suspicion of the homicidal deaths of children. But the investigation agency is trying to end the matter as a suicide case. Throughout the investigation, they had picked out some materials to write off a heinous crime only as a suicide case. Now the 1st and 2nd respondents are trying to submit the final reports in a hurry-burry manner without properly and efficiently conducting the investigation. An efficient and proper investigation by the State's instrumentality is a part of the right to life postulated under Article 21 of the Indian constitution," the plea contends. 

The petitioner has alleged that she suspects that the investigation agency is acting under the "influence of somebody". It has also been averred that the investigating agency is acting with mala fides and abusing its powers of investigation. 

"The deceased girls belong to the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe community, a marginalized section of the society. They are helpless to find out the truth behind the incident. Therefore, the interference of this Court is sine qua non for doing complete justice," it has been pleaded. 

The petitioner has also prayed for issuance of directions for investigation into the homicidal angle of the death of the minor girls, and to also conduct investigation into the suspicious deaths of one of the accused namely Pradeep, and suspect, John Praveen, and its connection with the present case. 

The Case

The case involves the unnatural death of two minor Dalit sisters aged 13 years and 9 years on January 13 and March 4, 2017, respectively, in Walayar district in Kerala. Post mortem reports disclosed that they were subjected to rape before their deaths.

As per the police case, the girls committed suicide out of intolerable pain and agony caused by the multiple instances of unnatural sex committed on them by the accused.

There were five accused in the case, namely, Madhu alias Valiya Madhu, Madhu M. alias Kutti Madhu, Shibu, Pradeep Kumar M and a minor aged 16 at the time of the offence. The fourth accused Pradeep Kumar allegedly died by suicide in November 2020.

A special POCSO court in 2019 acquitted three of the accused citing a weak case presented by the prosecution. This had sparked a storm of protests in the State with civil society organisations and Opposition parties decrying the police investigation and political interference in the case.

The case had also acquired sensational proportions as the police officers who investigated it initially had faced allegations of helping the accused.

Therefore, the State moved the High Court with appeals seeking a re-investigation in the matter, and the Court set aside the acquittal of the accused, with liberty granted to the prosecution to seek further investigation in the case.

Thereafter, the High Court in 2021 ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take up investigation into Walayar rape and death cases

Accordingly, in April 2021, the matter was taken up by the Thiruvanathapuram unit of CBI. The CBI thereby filed two separate FIRs in the matter after its probe under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act before a Special Court. The FIRs also booked the accused under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. They were incarcerated soon. The third accused M. Madhu was granted bail by the High Court.

Later on, Valiya Madhu and Shibu had preferred bail applications before the Additional Sessions Court claiming that they were being incarcerated for more than three months, but they were rejected in June 2021. On January 5, 2022, the Kerala High Court also dismissed the bail applications moved by the prime accused in the case, and asked them to approach the trial court. 

Case Title: XXX v. The Central Bureau of Investigation