Justice T R Ramachandran Nair of the Kerala High Court on Friday recused himself from hearing a petition filed by the state government challenging the Kozhikode Judicial First Class Magistrate Court order to provide Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan the copies of the documents and statements of the witnesses in the Kozhikode ice cream parlour sex scandal case.
The state government submitted that Achuthanandan is a ‘stranger’ to the crime registered at the Kozhikode town police station. The state submitted that a copy of the final case report was handed over to Achuthanandan and the prosecution had not objected to it. But a portion of the case diary, which is confidential in nature, could not be given to anyone and is prohibited under the Code of Criminal procedure.
“Achuthanandan has no locus standi to ask for the certified copies of the documents from the case diary. He is neither the complainant, the accused nor a witness to the proceedings,” the state said.
The magistrate has called for the case diary only to take a decision regarding whether to accept or reject the final report. The documents produced subsequent to the filing of the final report is not part of it and nobody other than the court is entitled to use the document, the state submitted.