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Supreme Court Issues Notice On Chennai Advocate's Plea Against State Police Probe Into His Son's Death
Mehal Jain
8 Feb 2022 5:59 PM IST
On allegations of manipulation by the Tamil Nadu state police, the Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on the challenge to the Madras High Court direction vesting the investigation in the 2011 death of an advocate to the CB-CID (Metro Chennai).The bench of Justices D. Y. Chandrachud and Surya Kant was hearing the SLP against the February, 2021 decision of the Madras High Court holding that...
On allegations of manipulation by the Tamil Nadu state police, the Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on the challenge to the Madras High Court direction vesting the investigation in the 2011 death of an advocate to the CB-CID (Metro Chennai).
The bench of Justices D. Y. Chandrachud and Surya Kant was hearing the SLP against the February, 2021 decision of the Madras High Court holding that the death of advocate R. Sankarasubbu's 24-year-old son S. Sathish Kumar, a law graduate, was a homicide and not suicide as claimed by the CBI in 2012. The Full Bench had agreed with the findings of a court appointed SIT, headed by retired CBI Director R.K. Raghavan, that the youngster had actually been murdered. However, since the SIT could not detect the culprits despite best efforts, the High Court had directed the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (Metro) to take over the case and investigate it as and when they stumble upon some clue in the future.
On Monday, the bench recorded that Senior Advocate R. Basant (assisted by Advocate Rahul Shyam Bhandari) for the petitioner-father and Advocate S. Prabhakar for the Tamil Nadu Advocates' Association and the Madras High Court Bar Association (respondents 5 and 6) have jointly urged that:-
1. the investigation in the present case into the death of the son of the petitioner, both of whom have been members of the bar, was initially handed over from the local police in Tamil Nadu to the CBI, and after the CBI submitted a status report on 5 March 2012 indicating that it was a case of suicide, the High Court constituted an SIT headed by Shri R. K. Raghavan on 20 February 2013;
2. the SIT has concluded that the case was not one of suicide but one of homicide, but the offence is undetected;
3. since the investigation was handed over from the state police initially to the CBI and thereafter to the SIT, the ultimate direction of the High Court for handing over the investigation to the CBCID Metro Chennai may not serve the purpose;
4. though the impugned order of the High Court was passed on 4 February 2021, by which direction was issued to the CBCID to file a quarterly status report before the Additional CMM, Egmore, no substantial status report has been filed by the CB-CID indicating the progress in the course of the investigation in the course of the previous one year since the order of the High Court.
Mr. Basant had prayed, "If Your Lordships will give them notice and ask them what has been done so far? Please understand the apprehensions of the father and the other members of the bar. Both the father and the son were taking up human rights violation cases against the state police. It is my case that that was the cause of the liquidation of my son!"
"CB-CID is nothing but another wing of the local police. The SIT finds in its report that there is an attempt to manipulate by the state police. What is the point in giving it to the CBCID? This is a peculiar case where initially suicide theory was advanced to scuttle the investigation. Now it is clear that it is a murder. If the same SIT can be asked to continue the investigation for sometime, it is fine. They have already done it for five years. I would pray that the present SIT be asked to continue until the person responsible is found out, or the sense of justice will never be satisfied. Mr Raghavan may be otherwise engaged now- If anybody has a difficulty, Your Lordships may change him", Mr. Basant had urged.
The bench passed the following order on Monday- "Issue notice, returnable in three weeks. Liberty to serve the standing counsel for the state of Tamil Nadu in addition. A status report shall be filed by the CB-CID indicating the progress in the course of the investigation in the course of the previous one year since the order of the High Court."
The law graduate had gone missing on June 7, 2011 forcing his father to file a habeas corpus petition (HCP) in the High Court after lodging a police complaint. Initially, his motorcycle alone was located near Integral Coach Factory (ICF) north colony lake.
However, after the filing of the HCP, the victim's body was found floating in the lake near ICF Railway Police rest room on June 13, 2011. A post mortem conducted by a team of three doctors found him to have died of shock and haemorrhage due to cut injuries in the throat.
Thereafter, at the instance of the petitioner, the court ordered a CBI probe into the death. After filing periodical status reports in the court, CBI concluded that it was a case of suicide and sought permission to file a final report before the magistrate concerned.
Not satisfied with its conclusion, the court on December 7, 2012 constituted a SIT which in its 24th report, filed on December 5, 2017, concluded that the death was due to homicide. It however, stated that the accused could not be detected despite best efforts. The SIT also recommended penal action against six officials attached to State police and two attached to CBI for alleged lapses in investigation. State Public Prosecutor A. Natarajan opposed the recommendation on the ground that the local police probed the case only for eight days.
Finding force in his submission, the Full Bench held that it could not order penal action against those officials without affording them an opportunity of hearing. Therefore, it left it to the Centre as well as the State government to take a call on the basis of the SIT's report.
After directing both the CBI as well as SIT to file their final reports before the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) at Egmore here, the Bench ordered that copies of both reports, along with annexures, must be served on the habeas corpus petitioner.
Making it clear that the CBI was being directed to file its report only to enable serving of copies on the complainant, the judges ordered that the Magistrate should not accept the CBI's final opinion since they have declared the death to have occurred due to homicide.
The CB-CID (Metro) was directed to take over the probe and file status reports once in four months before the ACMM.
Case Title: R. Sankarasubbu v. The Commissioner of Police
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