The Madras High Court on Wednesday refused to order a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Ayanavaram child gang-rape case. It said the accused had not established any extraordinary ground for a CBI probe to be ordered after the local police had completed investigation and filed the final report.
Dismissing their petition, Justice A.D. Jagadish Chandira said: “This petition has been filed by the accused facing charges under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act of 2012. No specific material fact has been averred in the petition regarding mala fide exercise of power by the Chennai city police.”
“In the opinion of this court, all the grounds raised in the petition are matter for trial and further, no assertion has been made by way of affidavits.” He pointed out that a Mahila Court presided over by a Sessions Judge here had also taken on file a chargesheet filed by the local police after completing the investigation.
Observing that the Code of Criminal Procedure can protect the rights of the accused at any stage of the trial, the judge said the accused were free to file appropriate petitions before the trial court if they were aggrieved against examination of witnesses or scrutiny of CCTV footage of the scene of occurrence.
‘Media hype’
As many as 14 persons accused in the gang-rape case had moved the High Court seeking a CBI probe. They alleged that the local police had not conducted a free and fair probe due to the hype created by the media.
Aged between 23 and 66, the petitioners were working as plumbers, housekeepers, security guards and lift operators in the apartment, where the victim — a 12-year-old girl — had been allegedly gang-raped by them over a period of seven months by forcibly intoxicating her.
The crime came to light only when the victim opened up to her sister and a case was booked on the basis of a complaint lodged by their mother. Terming it as a completely false case, the petitioners said that it was very strange that the minor girl was still alive despite the claim of her having been gang-raped on multiple occasions.
Asserting that none of them had any bad antecedents, the accused said that they had been framed in the case. The “false” case had brought disrepute to them and their families, the petitioners said, and claimed that all of them had lost their jobs and their house owners were forcing their families to vacate their houses.
