CHENNAI: In a setback to former Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami, the Madras High Court has allowed three accused persons in the 2017 Kodanad heist-cum-murder case to examine EPS and VK Sasikala, former close aide of late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, as defence witnesses in the case.
Justice P Velmurugan passed the orders, in this connection, while allowing the revision petitions filed by the three accused persons- D Dheebu, MS Satheesan and A Santhosh Sami- against the April 30, 2021 order of the principal sessions court in The Nilgiris.
While rejecting their plea for summoning EPS, Sasikala and seven others for examining them as defence witnesses as they were well aware of the happenings in the bungalow which was owned by Jayalalithaa, the principal sessions court had allowed examination of the only one witness, Natarajan, the manager of the Kodanad estate belonging to late Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.
The petitioners’ counsel had submitted that the principal sessions court rejected the plea for examining EPS as a defence witness saying that the petitioners could not abuse the process of law by summoning him because he was holding the post of CM.
Mystery has been shrouding the heist cum murder ever since it occurred on the night of April 23, 2017, a year after the demise of Jayalalithaa.
A group of ten persons was alleged to have barged into the bungalow, which once served as the summer retreat for Jayalalithaa, and made off with certain valuables after murdering a security guard, Om Bahadur.
C Kanagaraj, a former driver of the late CM, was held as the prime accused and alleged to have employed a gang of ten persons- Sayan, Manoj, Deepu, Jamsheer Ali, Satheesan, Bijin, Udhartan, Santhosh Sami, Manoj PC and Jithin Joy- from Kerala for committing the offence.
Subsequent to the heist cum murder, Kanagaraj died in a road accident on Salem-Athur highway in a mysterious way. Similarly, the wife and daughter of Sayan died in another accident near Palakkad in Kerala. However, he survived in the mishap.
An employee of the estate-Dinesh Kumar-was found dead at his house in Kotagiri.
The investigation into the incidents was progressing on a snail’s pace when AIADMK was in power. After change of regime in 2021, the government expedited the probe. Yet, no significant improvements seem to have been made so far. Currently, the police are holding a further investigation into the grave crime.