BENGALURU: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday sought a response from the State Government on the PIL filed by Kusumavathi, the mother of Sowjanya, who was allegedly raped and murdered in Dharmasthala a decade ago, seeking directions to the SIT to register 74 separate FIRs, one for each case documented in her representation dated October 11, 2025.
A division bench of Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice M Poonacha asked the government advocate to take instructions from the state government, before adjourning further hearing of the petition to February 3. The petitioner prayed the court to issue directives to the overnment to provide SIT with the legal framework and judicial oversight necessary for it to carry out probe free from extraneous pressures.
The petitioner contended that the systematic pattern of immediate burial of bodies in unrecorded graves, coupled with deliberate failure to follow mandatory investigative procedures to rule out homicides, constitutes a gross violation of the fundamental rights guaranteed under Article 21 to the 74 victims and to their families who have been searching for them.
The petitioner said the SIT should immediately take steps to enable identification of the 74 victims and to provide information to families who may be searching for missing persons such as compile and publish a public notice in widely circulated newspapers and a dedicated public website containing a list of all 74 cases with FIR numbers along with when body was found, location where it was found, gender, estimated age, etc.
It will enable families of the missing to approach SIT. SIT should submit the status report on a periodic basis to the court. Therefore, a direction be issued to SIT, the petitioner urged.