The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday reserved its verdict on a petition seeking a CBI probe into the 2012 murder of K.N. Ramajeyam, brother of former Tamil Nadu Minister and DMK Tiruchi district Secretary K.N. Nehru.
Justice A.M. Basheer Ahamed deferred his judgement, without mentioning a date on which it would be pronounced, after pointing out that the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID) had not been able to crack the case even after five long years.
Latha Ramajeyam, wife of the deceased, had approached the High Court in December 2014 with a plea for CBI probe. Since then, the CB-CID had obtained a series of adjournments after promising the court, time and again, of achieving a breakthrough in the case at the earliest.
However, when the case was heard on Thursday, Senior Counsel R. Shanmugasundaram, representing the petitioner, told the court that it was not fair on the part of the CB-CID to seek further time without having shown any appreciable progress in the investigation.
Concurring with him, the judge said that a perusal of the last two status reports filed by the CB-CID showed that most of the paragraphs from one of those reports had been cut and pasted into the other but for the last line in which the agency had sought for further time to complete the probe.
However, defending the CB-CID, a government counsel alleged that Ramajeyam’s family members were not fully cooperating with the investigation. He also said that the agency was genuinely interested in nabbing the real culprits than just closing the case by fixing someone as an accused.
Mr. Shanmugasundaram took strong exception to this and said that the petitioner's family had provided full cooperation to the agency so far. Though the CBI was also hesitant to take up investigation in the case citing shortage of manpower, he said it was up to the court to take the final call.
Mr. Ramajeyam’s body was found in a bush on the banks of the Cauvery near Thiruvalarcholai on the outskirts of Tiruchi on March 29, 2012. The circumstances indicated that he was done to death after being abducted during his morning walk.
