A Judicial Magistrate at Kuzhithurai in Kanyakumari district on Thursday submitted his explanation to the Madras High Court Bench here on the charge of suspected collusion between his office and the local police to wriggle out of the grave charge of having remanded a three-year-old boy in judicial custody along with his father and maternal aunt without letting him to go with his mother.
After perusing the explanation submitted in a sealed cover, a Division Bench of Justices K.K. Sasidharan and B. Gokuldas allowed a petition filed by the boy’s mother to include the Home Secretary and Director-General of Police also as respondents to a habeas corpus petition filed by her. It also directed the State government to file its counter affidavit by August 31 to the petitioner’s plea for monetary compensation.
The Bench on July 25 suspected collusion between the office of P. Shunmugaraja, Judicial Magistrate-I, Kuzhithurai, Kanyakumari district and the police, since it was “found from the remand report that the name of the child was originally shown as a person to be remanded. [but] The name was struck off with whitener. However, in the body the police have indicated the production of the child along with two accused.”
The judges also said: “Very strangely, the learned Magistrate passed an order remanding the two accused without indicating the position of the minor. Thereafter, in the warrant of remand, mention was made that the child has also been sent along with the two accused… We have reasons to believe that the office of the learned Judicial Magistrate colluded with the police and applied whitener.
“There is nothing on record to show as to when the alterations were made, whether before producing it to the court or thereafter… We are taking this issue seriously.”
