KOCHI: It seems the legal battle in the Nedumkandam custodial death case will continue as the CBI will file a report in the Supreme Court over the bail granted by the Kerala High Court to six police officials recently. Claiming it to be a directive of the Supreme Court, the CBI team had arrested six former officials of Nedumkandam police station on Tuesday but they were released on bail by the High Court on Thursday
A senior CBI officer said a report regarding the bail granted by the High Court would be submitted before the Supreme Court soon. “Only after receiving legal advice, we will decide on challenging the High Court decision at the Supreme Court. However, we will file a report before the apex court. The Supreme Court, while cancelling the bail of first accused and SI K A Sabu, had directed to arrest the police officers. They were arrested based on this direction,” an officer said.
The confusion over the Supreme Court verdict has seen several twists in the case by now. Last year, the Kerala government had approached the Supreme Court against the High Court decision to grant bail to Sabu.
In December, a division bench of the Supreme Court cancelled Sabu’s bail and directed the CBI to arrest all officers accused in the case. The other accused persons were not respondents in that petition.
After taking over the probe from the Crime Branch, the CBI decided to implement the Supreme Court order and arrested Sabu on Monday.
On Tuesday, citing the Supreme Court order, the CBI also arrested the other six police officials -- ASI Regimon C B, driver/civil police officers Niyas S, Sajeev Antony, home guard James K M, civil police officer Jithin K George and ASI Roy P Varghese. However, when produced before the magistrate, the court first decided to grant them bail for a day but reversed its decision and remanded them.
The Chief Judicial Magistrate Court heard the bail petitions of the accused and custody application filed by CBI on Wednesday. However, before giving the verdict in the petitions, the accused approached the High Court and received the bail order.
Rajkumar, 53, of Wagamon was taken into custody by Nedumkandam police in Idukki on June 12, 2019. He was kept in illegal custody till June 15. After being remanded to Peermade sub-jail, he died at a hospital on June 21. A re-autopsy carried out in August 2019 revealed 22 injuries on the body.