CHENNAI: A Division Bench of the Madras High Court stayed the proceedings of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) on the alleged rights violations meted out at P Ramkumar, the accused in the sensational murder of engineer Swathi, during his remand at Puzhal Central Prison.
The Bench of justices K Kalyanasundaram and V Sivagnanam issued the orders on a petition by R Anbalagan, the then Superintendent of Puzhal Central Prison-II. They stayed all further proceedings on the suo motu case initiated in 2020 by the SHRC.
The petitioner, who served as the superintendent of the central prison when the incident occurred on September 18, 2016, stated that the commission could not initiate the proceedings after a delay of four years as it does not have the power to condone the delay.
He also noted that the report of the postmortem examination conducted by a five-member doctors team, including one from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, concluded that the deceased appeared to have died due to electrocution.
A similar conclusion was arrived at by Judicial Magistrate-II of Tiruvallur after due investigation conducted under section 176 (1-A) of the CrPC and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) too had found that the allegations levelled by the parents of Ramkumar were not substantiated by any record. Moreover, the High Court had dismissed a petition seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigations (CBI) as well.
While the facts are being so, the SHRC, in 2020, took cognizance of a news report published in 2016. Anbalagan wanted the court to pass interim stay and quash the case initiated by the SHRC. It may be noted that Swathi, a techie, was murdered at the railway station in Nungambakkam on June 24, 2016. Police held Ramkumar, a resident of Meenakshipuram near Tenkasi, in connection with the case. He was remanded in judicial custody at the Puzhal Central Prison on July 5, 2016. While imprisoned at a separate cell in the Puzhal Central Prison, he was stated to have bitten a live electric wire to die by suicide on September 18, 2016.