The State Government has appointed U. Sankaranarayanan as Special Public Prosecutor (SPP) in the Ammasi murder case in which three persons – a lawyer, his wife and their driver – were booked by the city police.
Mr. Sankaranarayanan a retired Deputy Director of Prosecution, had earlier appeared for the siblings’ murder case in 2010.
E.T. Rajavel, an advocate, was accused of murdering Ammasi with the help of two others, cremating her body and claiming that it was his wife Mohana. Her death was faked to help her escape from the clutches of the law as she was reportedly involved in a multi-crore cheating case in Odisha.
A woman-missing case was registered by Rathinapuri police in 2011 when Ammasi was claimed to be missing. It was altered to a case of murder by the Podanur police in 2013 when her murder came to light. However, a charge sheet in the case was filed only recently.
But there was delay in pressing charges against the accused as six original documents, including Form II to declare her death, medical certificate relating to death of Ammasi under Form 4A and cremation certificate and application to register Mohana’s death, were missing from the court.
The SPP said that he would appeal to the court to proceed with the trial using the photocopies of the original documents under provisions in the Evidence Act The case was also expected to be committed from the court of original jurisdiction (magistrate) to the court of appropriate jurisdiction.
Meanwhile, Justice for Ammasi Murder Forum has planned to approach the Madras High Court seeking directions to register a case against the accused under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Prevention of Atrocities Act also. Coordinator of the forum R. Athi Ganesan said that they have also asked the court here to dismiss the staff responsible for the documents that went missing.