A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed in the Allahabad High Court seeking directions to the National Human Rights Commission and the Central Bureau of Investigation to separately enquire into the arrests of the three persons in the Aarushi-Hemraj murder case. The PIL was filed in the Lucknow Bench by Uttar Pradesh based Social Activist Nutan Thakur.
Within days of taking over the investigation into the case in May 2008, the CBI had arrested Krishna, Dr. Rajesh Talwar's compounder. Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal, domestic helps of neighbours of the Talwars, were also arrested in June and July that year.
The three got bail in September that year.
On August 9 2008, then CBI director Ashwani Kumar had said that many important corroborative pieces of evidence were yet to be found while Joint Director Arun Kumar on August 11, 2008, said that the CBI still considered it a blind case. The CBI closure report of December 29, 2010, exonerated the three saying “it is conclusively established that the servants could not have committed the crime for the following reasons,” citing 18 points.
The petition also seeks that the three Nepalese domestic helps be given compensation for their “unwarranted arrests” and fixing of criminal and administrative responsibility of officers found guilty in the enquiry.
The petitioner filed the PIL after the NHRC refused to take up the issue reasoning that the complaint was addressed to other authority. She had raised the issue before the NHRC citing Chapter 12 of the CBI (Crime) Manual 2005, which says that arrest shall be made only as a last measure.
