A judicial probe into the mysterious death of Deputy Chief Medical Officer Y.S. Sachan in a jail in Lucknow has found it to be prima facie a case of murder, in a rebuff to the Uttar Pradesh government which had claimed it to be a suicide.
The report by Chief Judicial Magistrate Rajesh Upadhyaya was opened in the court on Tuesday during the hearing on a PIL seeking a CBI probe into the case by Lucknow bench of Allahabad High Court.
The Bench comprising justices Pradeep Kant and Ritu Raj Awasthi reserved its order for July 14, court sources said.
Arrested on charges of financial irregularities, Sachan, 52, was found dead inside the toilet of Lucknow district jail hospital on the night of June 22. He was also named as the key conspirator in the murder case of CMO B.P. Singh in April following the arrest of three shooters hired to kill him.
After Sachan’s death, the government and police had initially claimed that he committed suicide. The post mortem, however, revealed nine injury marks on the body including the neck, elbows, wrists and thigh.
While Sachan’s family cried foul and demanded a CBI inquiry, the State government ordered a judicial probe into the incident.
The CJM submitted the report with the acting district judge, district magistrate Lucknow and prison officials on Monday.
Meanwhile, former Chief Medical Officer of Lucknow A.K. Shukla, who along with Sachan was named in connection with the financial irregularities in the State health department, was on Tuesday arrested from a hospital in Lucknow.
