MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday sought a counter affidavit from CBI on the bail petition filed by suspended police inspector S Sridhar, who was arrested in the Sathankulam custodial death case in 2020.
Sridhar, who was working as the station house officer of Sathankulam police station in Thoothukudi, was arrested in July 2020 for the brutal assault of two traders, P Jeyaraj and his son Beniks, in police custody. Nine other policemen from the station were also arrested in the case but one of them died due to Covid-19, a month later. The trial is underway in Additional District and Sessions Court-I, Madurai.
However, Sridhar denied the allegations and claimed he was not even present at the spot at the time of the incident. Stating that he is suffering from a spinal cord problem and needs to undertake treatment in a private hospital, he sought bail. When the case was heard by Justice G Ilangovan, the CBI counsel informed that the presiding officer post of the trial court was lying vacant and only the in-charge judge had been conducting the trial and the new presiding officer was appointed only on August 22.
He also pointed out that in the last hearing on a case filed by the victim Jeyaraj's wife Selvarani to expedite the trial, the high court had granted three months time to the trial court, from the date of appointment of the new presiding officer, to complete the trial. Hearing this, the judge directed CBI to file a counter affidavit and adjourned the case to September 8.
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