MADURAI: Observing that the credibility of the criminal justice system rests upon the fairness of investigation at its very inception, the Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently transferred an investigation into a theft and suspicious death case in Tenkasi to the CB-CID.
Justice L Victoria Gowri passed the order on a petition filed by M Sathiskumar, whose father died allegedly by suicide, a few days after accusing Tenkasi police of not taking action on his theft complaint.
According to Sathiskumar, some unidentified persons had stolen 15 sovereigns of gold and Rs 22 lakh cash from his house in Puliyankudi on January 2, 2025. His father immediately lodged a complaint before Puliyankudi police. But instead of registering an FIR, only a Community Service Register (CSR) entry was made, he alleged. Despite repeated requests from his father, police did not register an FIR over the theft, causing his father to fall into mental stress and depression, he added.
On January 24, 2025, he found his father lying unconscious in his house and rushed him to the hospital, but he was declared dead. The same day, Puliyankudi police registered separate FIRs over the theft and his father’s suspicious death, he noted. But police ruled out his father’s death as suicide and filed a final report, he added.
Raising doubts on the manner in which the investigation has been conducted in both cases, he sought the above relief.
Justice Gowri criticised the police for the unexplained delay in registering the FIR and forwarding it to the magistrate, saying procedural lapses and unexplained delays erode the credibility of the investigation. “Justice must not only be impartial in substance but must also appear to be so in perception,” she observed and transferred both cases to the CB-CID.