Highlighting how the 13 accused in the 2019 sensational Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) functionary Ramalingam murder case had been prolonging the trial by using every trick in the book, the Madras High Court has lamented that the blame for keeping undertrials in prison for years together always went to the criminal justice delivery system.
“None will have the patience to pore over trial court records to find out who was actually responsible for the delay,” wrote a Division Bench of Justices P.N. Prakash and R.M.T. Teekaa Raman while dismissing an appeal preferred by 10 of the 13 accused against denial of bail by a Special Court for National Investigation Agency (NIA) cases.
The Bench pointed out that the deceased, V. Ramalingam of Tirubuvanam in Thanjavur district, was in the business of renting out vessels for marriages and other events. According to the prosecution, he and his son R. Shyam Sunder had witnessed a group of Muslim men proselytise Hindus to Islam on February 5, 2019.
Ramalingam objected to it and therefore, at around 11 p.m. on the same day, a gang hacked him in front of his son and fled in a car. Initially, the Tiruvidaimaruthur police registered an attempt to murder case and converted it into a murder case after the victim died. In view of the gravity of the offence, the Centre ordered a NIA probe in March 2019.
The NIA sleuths arrested 12 Muslim men — Mohammed Asarudeen, Mohammed Riyas, Nijam Ali, Sarbudeen, Mohammed Rizwan, Mohammed Thoufik, Mohammed Farvees, Thowheeth Batcha, Mohammed Ibrahim, Mohammed Hasan Kuthoos, Mohamed Faruk and Mydeen Ahamed Shali — and filed a charge sheet against them on August 2, 2019.
They also named six others — Rahman Sadiq, Mohammad Ali Jinna, Abdul Majith, Bhurkhanudeen, Shahul Hameed and Nafeel Hasan — as absconding accused and split their case from the main case. Subsequently, Rahman Sadiq alone was secured in August 2021, and he was also made to stand trial along with 12 other accused.
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In the meantime, the 12 accused continued to file petition after petition before the special court as well as the High Court seeking relief on various grounds. The result was that though the eye-witness Shyam Sunder was examined in chief by the prosecution as early as on February 23 this year, he had not been cross-examined by the defence till date.
Similarly, R. Chitra, the wife of the deceased was examined in chief on February 25, but she too had not been cross-examined so far because the defence counsel had filed an application to defer the cross-examination until two protected witnesses (whose name and address would not be disclosed) were examined in the court.
What’s more was that the two protected witnesses too had not been examined till date due to certain objections raised by the defence counsel. Finding it hard to fathom the course adopted by the defence, the Bench wrote, “If the trial is to progress in this manner, we are afraid it will not see the light of the day for another decade to come.”
Referring to the Supreme Court dictum that cross-examination of witnesses must be done immediately after examination in chief, the judges said, the entire testimony of these two crucial witnesses in the present case would become useless if something untoward happened to them before cross-examination.
“We are constrained to record our fears because, the whole world saw a Sessions Judge dealing with the cases of mining mafia being mowed to death in the State of Jharkhand while he was on his morning walk,” Justice Prakash wrote while authoring the verdict for the Division Bench.
While denying bail to the accused, the Bench directed the special court to complete the examination of the two prime witnesses as well as the two protected witnesses at the earliest.
