HC slams CB-CID; dismisses plea against acquittal

Describing CB-CID's attitude in investigating a murder case as a "mockery of criminal justice", the Madras High Court bench here today dismissed their appeal against the acquittal of two persons in the case.
A division bench of Justice A.Selvam and Justice T. Mathivanan said "the CB-CID has come on appeal knowing fully well that the case is not fit for appeal. This appeal is a mockery of criminal justice."
"Having been known pretty well that the judgment of acquittal recorded by the lower court is not fit to be appealed, the state, represented through the Inspector of Police attached to CB-CID, Madurai, has preferred the present appeal to expose their inefficiency and ugly mechanism which they have devised to investigate the case," the judges said.

The Investigating officer, who had taken up the investigation, failed to evince much interest in bringing home the guilt of accused persons, the bench said.
"We also feel coy to say that the investigating agency ie, CBCID, a special branch set up by the government of Tamil Nadu for the exclusive purpose of investigating the crime is not able to pin the real perpetrator of the crime from the accused," it said.
The prosecution had confused itself and tried to confuse the court, the judges said.

"On account of inefficiency in investigation and insufficiency in evidence, the entire prosecution case fails, for which the investigation officers are responsible and answerable," the judges held and dismissed the appeal.

The prosecution case was that based on the complaint of one Bombay Paramasivam, father of one Meenal, who committed suicide by hanging, a case under Section 174 of CrPC (suspicious death) was registered. Initially, the police tried to close the case as suicide due to unbearable stomach pain.
The postmortem report showed that the death was due to strangulation and the case was converted to murder and police arrested one Rajamanickam, husband of the deceased, and Packialakshmi, mother of the deceased, stating that as the deceased came to know their illicit relationship, she was murdered.
Subsequently, Rajamanickam approached a lower court and obtained a CBCID probe. After the final report was laid down, the lower court acquitted the accused as the prosecution failed to prove the case, citing various flaws in the investigation.