MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday dismissed the petitions filed by former Sathankulam sub-inspector P Ragu Ganesh, one of the key accused in Jeyaraj-Beniks custodial death case, against a rejection order passed by the lower court on his petition to recall two witnesses — the judicial magistrate who recorded the statement of one of the key eye-witnesses in the case and the doctor who performed the autopsy of the victims — for cross examination in the case.
Justice G Ilangovan, who dismissed the petitions, observed that there is no occasion to show that there was miscarriage of justice in dismissing the applications filed by the petitioner by the trial court. A reading of the deposition of the witnesses shows that extensive cross examination was made by the co-accused touching even minute details, the judge noted. The petitioner counsel also failed to convince the court on which vital point the petitioner wishes to cross examine the two witnesses, the judge added, and refused to interfere with the trial court's decision.
In his petition, Ganesh claimed that during the earlier cross examination of the above witnesses, his counsel was sick and therefore he was unable to cross examine them. However, the CBI special public prosecutor contended that the above witnesses were already called for several times and sufficient opportunity was given to the petitioner to cross examine them. Despite repeated directions issued by the higher courts to complete the trial process on time, it could not be completed because of the 'marathon' cross examination made by the accused, the special public prosecutor added.