HYDERABAD: The Telangana High Court on Wednesday felt it appropriate to hand over the investigation into alleged lockup death of Mariamma to CBI. The death took place at Addagurudu Police Station in Rachakonda Police Commissionerate. The court also directed the petitioner to implead with the Central government and asked the Superintendent of Police, CBI to be present at the next hearing on November 22.
The division bench, headed by Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, also directed State Advocate General BS Prasad to hand over the complete set of case files to Assistant Solicitor General (ASG) Namavarapu Rajeshwar Rao. During the course of hearing, the Chief Justice questioned the Advocate General as to what action was initiated against the erring police officials who were responsible for Mariamma’s death.
The Advocate General replied that one SI and a police constable were dismissed from service. Not satisfied with the explanation, the Chief Justice asked him what criminal action was initiated against the police officers but the Advocate General said that Mariamma’s dependent was paid compensation by the government, to which Chief Justice said: “This won’t bring back her life.”
While going through the First Postmortem Report (PME) and the 2nd PME report, the Chief Justice pointed out that in the first report no grave injuries were shown but only in the second, which was ordered by a judicial officer, injuries came to light. The CJ displayed the photographs, showing grave injuries on Mariamma’s body. “If anybody is beaten like this, her heart will stop,” the CJ said.
The division bench was not convinced with the submissions of the Advocate General when he said Mariamma died due to heart failure as she was already suffering from other ailments. After hearing the contentions of the AG, the Chief Justice said that this case should be investigated by an independent agency, and directed the petitioner to implead with Centre and CBI as respondents to the PIL and adjourned the case to November 22.