KOCHI: In a major setback to the Kerala Government, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Tuesday ordered a CBI probe into the murder of two youth Congress leaders - Kripesh and Sarathlal at Periya in Kasaragod allegedly by CPM supporters. The state government had brought senior advocates from the Supreme Court paying a hefty Rs 1 crore as fees to oppose the CBI probe.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice S Manikumar and Justice CT Ravikumar passed the judgement while dismissing the appeal filed by the Kerala government seeking to quash the Single Judge's order allowing CBI probe.
The Bench observed that the allegation raised by the parents of the victims that the state police did not investigate the case in a fair and proper way was genuine.
The court also directed the CBI to look into the allegations leveled by the parents that there was a larger conspiracy involving CPM leaders behind the incident.
Advocate T Asaf Ali, the counsel for the parents of the deceased, submitted that the twin murder was meticulously planned by district-level CPM leaders in association with a local leader with the aid and assistance of a trained killer gang.
Opposing the CBI probe, the state government argued that there was no larger conspiracy involving CPM leaders.
No external forces had interfered in the investigation of the case.The probe team had found that there were 10 conspirators.
Local CPM leader and the first accused Peethambaran was the kingpin and he gathered all accused persons and lead them in action.
As per the investigation, there were no records regarding the allegation of the forceful release of second accused Saji C George from police custody by former CPM MLA KV Kunhiraman.
Even the presence of Ex-MLA was not mentioned anywhere in the case file.
The speech delivered by CPM leader VPP Musthafa at Kalliyot prior to the incident did not contain any threat against the deceased, but was only a political speech.
The parents of the deceased alleged that the speech indicated that the CPM district level leadership had enmity towards congressmen at Kalliyot. However, there was nothing to connect Mustafa to the crime.
The government argued that the Single Judge passed the order, in contravention to the well-established principles of law -- which mandates that the power to transfer a case to the CBI is to be exercised in the rarest of rare cases.
The Single Judge also conducted a mini-trial while issuing the order.
The CBI investigation was ordered on the reason that there was no proper identification of weapons for which the prosecution had a valid explanation.
Moreover, the case diary was also not examined by the Single Judge before passing the verdict.
While the charge sheet said the accused slashed the victims with iron rods, there was no corresponding injury on the body of the victim.
The state argued that this is a matter to be considered by the trial court at the time of framing charges and for this reason, the court cannot conclude that the entire investigation is vitiated.
The CBI submitted that it had re-registered the case on October 23, 2019 and on the following day it submitted a report before the jurisdictional court at Ernakulam.
The CBI had also filed an application before the Judicial First Class Magistrate Court, Hosdurg seeking a certified copy of the case documents.
An investigating officer was also appointed. However, the case diary was not yet handed over to the investigation officer who could not proceed without it.