The Madras High Court on Monday said it was of the view that if the Chennai Police is not able to solve a triple murder case in Ashok Nagar within four weeks, the Commissioner of Police will request the State Government to transfer the case to the CB CID.
The crime relates to the murder of Saravanan, his wife Kasturi and a female domestic worker , Anbarasi, in November 2008.
The First Bench comprising Chief Justice H.L. Gokhale and Justice K.K. Sasidharan passed the order while disposing of a petition by S.D.S. Rajadhevan, a city advocate. The petition had been filed in public interest to bring to light the number of murders that had occurred in Ashok Nagar here.
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The petitioner, a retired Superintendent of Police, CB CID, said as a resident of Ashok Nagar he was rudely shocked and affected seeing the sorry state-of-affairs of the police, particularly in the investigation of murder cases which remained unresolved.
Despite the infrastructure and manpower, the police were unable to put in their best to protect the public and bring the culprits to book immediately. There was little or no coordination, supervision or detection of property cases and grave crimes.
His main prayer was a direction to the authorities to transfer all the murder cases of Chennai Police for further investigation by CB CID or CBI so as to ensure proper investigation and to restore public confidence.
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The Government Pleader had earlier filed a report pointing out how security arrangements in the locality (Ashok Nagar) had been enhanced.
It was also stated that though there were 19 murders in the area since 2008, 18 had been promptly detected. It was only one case of triple murder which remained unsolved.
The Commissioner of Police in his affidavit submitted that 10 special teams had been formed to look into the case and it was hoped that investigation would move towards its logical conclusion and that the accused would be arrested.
On the prayer to transfer the case to CB CID, it was stated in the counter that if there was any difficulty in solving the case, the Commissioner would not hesitate to request the government to hand over the case to CB CID.
The Bench said, however, no time limit had been specified for completing this exercise. It was quite natural it would be difficult to specify any time limit in this regard. At the same time, there was justification in the petitioner’s anxiety for early action. The triple murder case had remained unresolved for more than a year now.
The court said the petitioner may assist the authorities in the matter of investigation of the case.