The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Tamil Nadu police to investigate with “zeal” and “alacrity” the 2011 murder of a Chennai-based human rights lawyer’s son.
A Bench of Justices D.Y. Chandrachud and Surya Kant said the case was one of murder, that too, of the son of a lawyer who had been filing human rights cases against the police. The lawyers’ community in the State was concerned about the status of the case. The court was equally concerned about uncovering the truth behind the crime.
The court assured the lawyer, R. Sankarasubbu, that since it was now seized of the case, the police would take up the investigation as a challenge.
Mr. Sankarasubbu’s 24-year-old son S. Sathish Kumar, a law graduate, died in June 2011. The son’s death had caused a furore, especially among lawyers.
However, the court also seemed to indicate that the police would need reasonable time to complete its probe of the case, which was already over a decade old.
The court noted that a status report currently filed by the CB-CID (Metro) of the State police, which is probing the case, has not said much.
The Bench directed the State police, represented by advocate Joseph S. Aristotle, to file an updated status report. It listed the case again in the second week of May.
On the request made by Mr. Sankarasubbu’s lawyers, senior advocate R. Basant and advocate Rahul Shyam Bhandari, the Bench directed the DIG of the local range to monitor the probe and affix his signature to the status report to be filed in the court.
The investigation of the case has in the past years seen a rollercoaster train of developments. The case was initially probed by the State police and then handed over to the CBI in 2012. The CBI had filed a report, concluding that the case was one of suicide.
The Madras High Court subsequently set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by former CBI Director R.K. Raghavan. The SIT, after inquiring into the death, had filed a report with the finding that the young man was actually murdered. However, the SIT could not zero in on the persons involved in the alleged murder.
The High Court, on the basis of the SIT report, finally handed over the case to the CB-CID on February 4 last year.
Mr. Sankarasubbu, early in 2022, moved the top court, alleging that the CB-CID had not filed a single report since February 2021 even though the High Court had directed it to file quarterly status reports before it.
Mr. Basant had submitted that the CB-CID was an arm of the State police and the family had serious suspicions whether the investigation would be fair. He had urged the court to have the SIT continue the investigation into the crime.
