The Madras High Court, on Wednesday, set aside an order of a special court that refused custody of Mohamed Mubarak, an accused in the murder of Hindu Munnani activist C. Sasikumar, to the NIA.
A division bench of Justices M. Venugopal and R. Hemalatha partially allowed an appeal by the NIA against the Poonamallee trial court’s March 16 order.
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The Chief Investigating Officer of the NIA had wanted police custody of two accused – Sabair and Mr. Mubarak – “to collect more evidence to unearth the overall larger conspiracy of this case hatched by the accused persons and their accomplice.”
The High Court on Wednesday asked the trial judge to reconsider the NIA’s application afresh. “The learned special judge for NIA cases, Poonamallee, Chennai is directed to restore Crl.M.P.No.85 of 2018 to his file and to pass necessary orders de novo, in a fair, just, unbiased and dispassionate manner, untrammelled and uninfluenced by any of the observations made by this court in this appeal [of course after providing adequate opportunities to the respective parties],” said the court.
Mr. Sasikumar was hacked to death on September 22, 2016. The CB-CIB of the Tamil Nadu police took over the investigation from the local police on October 1, 2016. The NIA took over the case on January 29, 2018. The HC reasoned that the trial court’s order substantially affected the rights of the NIA.
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