Justice N. Sathish Kumar of the Madras High Court has also concurred with the view of Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan that there are no materials to suspect that the death of a Class XII girl at a private school in Kaniyamoor in Kallakurichi district on July 13, which led to large scale riots and vandalism on July 17, was a case of rape and murder as alleged by her parents.
While Justice Kumar has now made the observation while dealing with a case in which he had decided to monitor the investigation, Justice Ilanthiraiyan had come to such a conclusion while dealing with bail petitions filed by the school correspondent, secretary, principal and two women teachers, who had been arrested on charges of abetting the girl’s suicide.
“From the experts’ report and the investigation done by the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) in all angles so far, the contention of the petitioner that the death is due to sexual assault and homicidal violence cannot be countenanced as the reports do not even suggest homicidal violence or any sexual assault,” Justice Kumar wrote.
The judge was referring to the two post-mortem reports that were reviewed by a team of forensic experts from the Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research (Jipmer). Though the parents’ counsel R. Sankarasubbu claimed that there is an inconsistency in the two post-mortem reports, the experts had not found any such thing, he pointed out.
“Neither the counsel nor the court are experts on this aspect, and merely because the complainant has raised such suspicion over the issue, one cannot expect that the investigation should go on the lines as alleged by the complainant. Therefore, the contention that there is an inconsistency in the two post-mortem reports has no legs to stand on,” he added.
Further, the CB-CID examined the close friends of the deceased and recorded their statements before a judicial magistrate. Some of these indicated that she had been suffering from depression and had gone to the extent of hurting herself with a blade. The investigators had also recovered a suicide note and the handwriting in it tallied as per an expert report, the judge said.
In a significant observation, the judge wrote: “In our experience, we have seen even a de facto complainant would be made an accused after the completion of the investigation. Such a stage has not been reached in this investigation, whereas, the status report also discloses various other circumstances and the same cannot be divulged at present.”
Taking serious note of some advocates giving interviews to the mainstream media as well as social media by comparing the two post-mortem reports and thereby conducting a media trial, the judge directed the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to identify the advocates in question and initiate disciplinary proceedings.
Recording the court’s displeasure over some television channels and the social media bent on the sensationalising and politicising the girl’s death just to gain public sympathy, the judge directed the police to initiate appropriate action against all those who had propagated false theories regarding the death.
