THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Additional District and Sessions Court dropping the charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder against Sriram Venkitaraman in the K M Basheer case has brought the spotlight back on the shoddy conduct of the police in the investigation.
The court after going through the documents concluded in its judgment that “there is no material to proceed against the accused under IPC Section 304”. What impaired the prosecution from making a concrete case against Sriram was that they had to rely on witnesses to prove the accused was drunk while driving the car as the chemical analysis report failed to find traces of alcohol in his blood sample.
The reason for failing to detect alcohol traces during the chemical analysis, according to the prosecution, was that the accused gave consent for drawing his blood sample only 10 hours after the accident and, by then, the ethyl alcohol traces had disappeared. The prosecution had to raise such a feeble contention as the police failed to perform their duty. As per the rules, the police do not require the consent of a suspect to draw his blood sample. But the officers of Thiruvananthapuram city police, strangely due to reasons only they can explain, waited for the IAS officer’s nod to do the basic thing.
A retired IPS officer, who preferred anonymity, said “It’s well settled that no consent of accused is required to draw his blood sample. There was a clear lapse from the officers while conducting the probe. They could have checked from where the IAS officer was coming before the accident. They could’ve collected evidence from that place if they wanted. That would have lent some credence to their claim that the accused was drunk and he destroyed the evidence by not appearing for blood test within the stipulated time,” he said.
Former director-general of prosecution V C Ismail said there is no rule which prevents the police from drawing blood samples of the accused as part of evidence collection. “If that is the case, all accused would refuse to give their consent and the prosecution will fail in the court,” he said. According to former director-general of prosecution T Asaf Ali, the claim that the IAS officer did not consent to his blood sample being tested is laughable. “As per CrPC Section 53 (1), reasonable force can be used to take the blood sample if it’s required. Police have got every power to use force if necessary,” he said.
In the absence of a favourable chemical analysis report, the prosecution had to depend on witnesses, who claimed to have felt the odour of alcohol while Sriram was taken to the hospital, as a last resort. However, the court cited the previous verdicts of higher courts to drive home the point that without conducting a medical check, the quantity of alcohol in his blood cannot be detected. “This case is a perfect example of how Kerala police can skilfully sabotage a probe by conniving with the accused,” said Asaf Ali.