Nearly two years after a Forest Officer and his wife were shot dead on a highway in Kanyakumari district, allegedly at the behest of certain high profile persons, a petition has been filed in the Madras High Court (Madurai Bench) seeking to order a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into it.
The local police had failed to make any vital breakthrough in the case so far and an earlier petition seeking proper investigation in the case did not yield the desired results.
Admitting the public interest litigation petition filed by Kanyakumari District Meen Thozhilalar Sangam (Fisheries Workers Association) president G Selestine, the Principal Bench comprising Acting Chief Justice R K Agrawal and N Paul Vasantha Kumar, has issued notices to the respondents returnable in two weeks.
The petitioner has listed the State Home Secretary, Director General Police, Joint Director of CBI, Kanyakumari Collector and Superintendent of Police as respondents.
The petitioner pointed out that on November 10, 2011, a Forest Officer, E Arumugam and his wife Yogeshwari were shot dead by unidentified persons while they were returning home on a two-wheeler.
The Sucheendram Police had said that they recovered bullets (including an unused one) from the spot. These bullets (KF85/9MM-2Z) were supplied to the Government departments like the police.
It was widely reported then that the officer could have been eliminated as he had cracked down on the timber smuggling mafia. However, no progress was made in tracing the culprits.
While disposing of an earlier petition filed by Selestine, the court had declined to transfer the investigation from the police after taking note of a status report filed by the police claiming that they had taken all steps to nab the real accused.
However, after this the secured accused had come out of jail on statutory bail because of non-filing of charge-sheet.
Another accused ‘Mundakan’ Mohan, who got bail, has absconded.
This showed that the investigating officer did not evince interest in securing the real accused or getting the bail cancelled.