The Judicial First Class Magistrate Court (I) here will hear on Monday a petition moved by Leader of the Opposition V.S. Achuthanandan seeking to take cognisance of his views on the final report filed by the Special Investigation Team that inquired into the allegations by K.A. Rauf, businessman, in the Kozhikode ice-cream parlour sex-scandal case.
The team, in its final report, had stated that it had not obtained sufficient evidence to charge-sheet any person, including Industries Minister P.K. Kunhalikutty, on the allegations that the accused had entered into a conspiracy, influenced the victims by offering money, forged documents, destroyed evidence and fabricated evidence to win the case in 2006.
Counter-petition
Magistrate P.T. Prakashan will also consider a counter-petition filed by the State government stating that the petition moved by Mr. Achuthanandan was “not legally maintainable either in law or on the facts of the case.”
Mr. Achuthanandan, who filed the petition through his counsel, P. Rajeev, said he had already filed a petition before the Kerala High Court with a prayer that the investigation be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for the reason that “one of the accused had become a Cabinet member of the State.”
Refer report
He said the investigating officer had filed the “refer report” in a hurry when the High Court had not finally considered the report filed by the SIT. “The High Court had also not considered whether the investigation by the SIT was satisfactory or whether the investigation should be handed over to the CBI,” Mr. Achuthanandan said.
The counter-petition, filed by Assistant Public Prosecutor (APP) K. Sreeja on behalf of the State government, asked the court to issue appropriate orders disallowing the claim of Mr. Achuthanandan as “his petition was filed only for political propaganda.”
“Mr. Achuthanandan was neither an informant nor a complainant and hence he has no right to take part in the proceedings and his objections cannot be considered at this stage,” the counter-petition said.
It also quoted an observation by the Supreme Court in the Bhagwant Singh vs. Commissioner of Police case of 1985 that a Magistrate court had only three options before it when a case was not made out against the accused — to accept the report and drop further proceedings; disagree with report and take cognisance and proceed further; or finally direct further investigation in the matter under Section 156 (30) [procedure for investigation] of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
