THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: In a major setback to IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman, the Supreme Court on Friday ruled that the charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against him will stand in the case pertaining to the death of journalist K M Basheer in a road accident.
Sriram, who is currently the general manager of Kerala Civil Supplies Corporation, had approached the apex court against the High Court order which stayed the lower court’s decision to drop the charge against him.
The Supreme Court bench headed by Justice C T Ravikumar dismissed the appeal after adopting a stand that the question of whether the charge was maintainable could only be judged during the trial. Sriram’s counsels had argued that there was a lack of evidence to press the charge against him and that Basheer’s was a case motor vehicle accident.
However, the court did not buy the arguments and passed the ball to the trial court. However, the apex court reminded that the observations of the High Court should not influence the proceedings of the trial court. The Additional District and Session Court last October discharged Sriram of the charges of culpable homicide (IPC 304) and the state government filed a review petition in the High Court challenging the verdict.
The High Court observed that the pieces of evidence listed against the accused if proven, could assert the allegation levelled by the prosecution. Basheer, who was the bureau chief of the vernacular daily Siraj, was killed after a car driven by Sriram knocked him off his two-wheeler near the Museum on August 3, 2019. Sriram was allegedly drunk when the incident took place. He was accused of destroying evidence of him being in an inebriated state by willfully delaying undergoing a medical test.