Chennai: Setting aside the final report filed by the police and the charges framed by the lower court at Thirupathur in Vellore district, the Madras high court has directed the Inspector of Police (Crime), Ambur Taluk Police Station, Vellore to hand over the entire case diary relating to the murder of a social activist, who fought for the removal of encroachments on water bodies for over 5 years, to the CBCID for further investigation.
Justice N.Anand Venkatesh gave the directive while allowing a petition filed by D.Subramanian, brother of the deceased Thanickachalam, which sought transfer of investigation on the ground that the investigation has not been conducted properly and there is a conscious attempt to shield some of the accused persons.
The judge said on carefully assessing the entire materials available on record, this court has no hesitation to come to a conclusion that the Inspector of Police, Ambur Police Station has not investigated this case effectively and a clear attempt has been made to shield the main accused persons. That apart, the Committal Court also failed to follow the settled principles of law and had committed illegality while committing the case to the Court of Sessions, the judge added.
The judge said, “The final report filed by the police is hereby set aside. The Committal made by the Judicial Magistrate Court, Ambur, is hereby set aside and the charges framed by the District and Sessions Court, Thirupathur, is also set aside. The Inspector of Police, Ambur Police Station shall hand over the entire case dairy to the Additional Director General of Police, CBCID, Chennai within a period of 2 weeks and the Additional Director General of Police, CBCID, Chennai, shall nominate a police officer not less than the rank of the Deputy Superintendent of Police and direct the police officer to conduct the investigation and it shall be monitored by the Additional Director General of Police, CBCID, Chennai. All efforts shall be made to effectively conduct the investigation and a final report shall be filed as expeditiously as possible”.
The judge said this court carefully perused the case dairy and the status report filed by the police. It was very clear from the records that the police had focused upon only one accused person, who was already a history sheeter and conveniently filed a final report by showing him as the accused person. The police rely upon the extra judicial confession and the recovery under section 27 of the Evidence Act, to file the final report. There has been absolutely no effort made to investigate the case as against the other named accused persons and it was not known as to what happened to the call details collected in the course of investigation against the accused persons, the judge added.
The judge said V.Ramesh was a very vital witness in this case and he was the one, who had been closely in touch with the deceased till few hours, before the deceased was attacked and killed. He provides very vital information in the supporting affidavit filed before this court. If the police was serious enough, they would have taken into consideration the leads provided by the said Ramesh and it was perfectly possible for the police to have unearthed the truth. However, for
reasons best known to the police, they found an easy way out to file the final report, by dropping the names of all the accused persons and filed a final report against one history sheeter. In other words, the names of all the encroachers against whom the deceased was fighting and upon whom, the needle of suspicion was pointing, have all been dropped from the final report. “In short, this is one of the most slipshod investigation conducted by the police”, the judge added.
