The Madras High Court has ordered the transfer of a case relating to the death of an Additional Government Pleader to the CB CID. Sundaramoorthy was found dead on the Sangagiri court campus on February 20 last year.
In his order allowing a petition filed by Sundaramoorthy's father Perumal, Justice C.T. Selvam said investigation should be conducted either by an officer in the rank of Superintendent of Police (SP) or supervised by an officer of SP rank.
Mr. Perumal said Sundaramoorthy was practising as an advocate and held the office of Additional Government Pleader. He was found dead and, on a complaint, a case was registered. Though doctors who conducted the post-mortem had opined that the death was due to throttling, further clarification was sought by the investigating officer from another doctor. This was apparently on the ostensible reason that while both the post-mortem report and the forensic report said the death was due to throttling, the forensic report had also stated that the victim had consumed ethyl alcohol.
The doctor, after seeing the video tape and records, had said that there were no injuries on the neck and the cause of death was due to the effect of alcohol consumption. Armed with this opinion, a final report was filed stating that Sundaramoorthy had died owing to excess consumption of alcohol. Further action was dropped by the Sangagiri police.
Aggrieved, the petitioner approached the High Court seeking transfer of the case to CBI for investigation.
Mr. Justice Selvam said as against the opinion of the doctors who had conducted the post-mortem and the forensic report the opinion of one who had merely gone through the video tape and the records had been acted upon, bringing the case to nought. An incident (police-lawyers clash) had taken place on the High Court premises on February 19. The advocate died the next day. It was submitted that the incident had a bearing and resulted in improper investigation.
N. Chandrasekaran, Special Public Prosecutor, CBI, said the State CB CID had the necessary manpower and other infrastructure facilities to do a fair and proper investigation. The CBI was overloaded. Government Advocate (criminal side), J.C. Durairaj, said the CB CID was capable of taking up the investigation. Petitioner's counsel R. Sankarasubbu opposed the submissions of CBI counsel.
