The Madras High Court has made a minor modification to an order passed by it on February 9 constituting a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the 2012 KN Ramajeyam murder case and permitted a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) officer to probe other cases too, apart from being a part of the SIT.
Justice M. Nirmal Kumar passed the order after State Public Prosecutor (SPP) Hasan Mohammed Jinnah told the court that CBI Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) R. Ravi could not be completely relieved from the SIT since the murder investigation was at a crucial stage and his involvement was absolutely essential.
The SPP said the officer could however be allowed to investigate other CBI cases with a rider that he should not be transferred from Chennai and that he should be allowed to participate in the SIT proceedings as and when required. The judge concurred and modified the orders accordingly.
It was Justice V. Bharathidasan (since retired) who had ordered constitution of the SIT comprising Thoothukudi Superintendent of Police S. Jeyakumar, Ariyalur DSP Madan and Mr. Ravi for solving the 10-year-old murder case. Then, the judge had directed CBI Director to depute Mr. Ravi exclusively for the purpose of the SIT.
However, filing a modification petition now, the CBI Director urged the court to dispense with Mr. Ravi’s participation in the SIT since the officer had to investigate other cases too. On his part, Mr. Jinnah told the court that the officer was made part of the SIT since he had gathered a lot of information that could be useful in solving the case.
Further, stating that the officer had been providing useful leads, the SPP insisted that he must continue to be a part of the SIT.
The deceased was the brother of Municipal Administration Minister K.N. Nehru. The mystery behind his murder remained unsolved despite the case having been investigated first by the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department and then the CBI individually.
It was on a petition filed by another brother of the deceased that the High Court had constituted the SIT to solve the case.
