Shivangi Prakash-
Published on: August 24, 2021, at 15:47 IST
Three of the accused in the shocking Kodanad heist-murder case have filed a petition with the Madras High Court, asking for investigations against former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister K Palaniswami, expelled AIADMK leader and late Jayalalithaa’s close aide V K Sasikala, and others.
Three accused – Deepu, MS Satheesan, and A Samthosh Samy – are now on trial in the Nilgiris Session Court, as well as seven others included in the charge sheet in the case, have filed a criminal revision petition.
The accused, all of whom are from Kerala, are accused of murdering a security officer and stealing valuables from former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s Kodanad mansion, according to the charge sheet.
In the petition, the three accused have claimed that the “Proceedings of the trail at the Nilgiris Court was influenced and monitored by the persons holding power in the former ruling party,”
The petition also claimed that the police questioned only 41 witnesses out of over a hundred on the list, as well as the death in an accident of the family of one of the accused, instances of political pressure on the main accused Sayan, a “hurried” trial, the appointment of an AIADMK -connected person as the lawyer for one of the accused, and several other alleged irregularities.
The three defendants have asked for an order allowing them to question the following witnesses in their criminal revision petition: Palaniswami, Sasikala, Murali Rambha, former Superintendent of Police for the Nilgiris, Sasikala’s cousins J Ilavarasi and NV Sudhakaran, AIADMK state organizer—Nilgiris Sanjeevan, the manager of the Kodanadu estate Natarajan, and others.
A similar application was brought before a Judge of the Sessions Court in Nilgiris, but he issued an order in April this year, days before the DMK stormed to power, prohibiting all bar the management of the Kodanadu bungalow from being examined.
Deepu, Satheesan, and Santhosh Samy also asked the Madras High Court to set aside a Session Court order from April 2021, and allow Palaniswami and Sasikala to be examined.
The Kodanad murder-heist case has been brought to light by the DMK government, which recently stated that it will go deeper into the details. Palaniswami, along with a slew of other AIADMK officials, denounced the action, calling it “political vendetta.”