Kallakurichi Student Death: Madras HC Directs Parents to Hand Over Their Daughter’s Mobile Phone to CB-CID

Madras High court law insider

Khushi Bajpai

Published on: 28th September, 2022 at 19:30 IST

After instructing the parents to turn over the cell phone to the Tamil Nadu Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID), the Judge terminated hearing of the case until October 10.

On August 26, the Madras High Court rejected the possibility of rape and murder and declared the death of the 17-year-old to be a suicide. The court stated that it had reviewed two postmortem reports and found “no iota of proof for rape and murder of the deceased as per the postmortem findings” in its bail order to the five accused in the case.

The young girl’s death had caused widespread rioting on July 17 in Kaniyamoor in the Kallakurichi district, with the demonstrators directing their attacks on the school where she was enrolled at the time.

On Tuesday, the girl’s father, Ramalingam, presented a writ petition to the Madras High Court. The Public Prosecutor informed Justice V Sivagnanam that even though the case was handed over to the CB-CID, as requested by the petitioner, they are not supporting the investigating officer in the probe.

The judge questioned why the petition wasn’t dismissed since the request to transfer the inquiry had been granted.

The petitioner’s attorney informed the judge that the parents had spoken with the Chief Minister and demanded a thorough investigation. Additionally, he begged that the petitioner be given access to the first and second post-mortem CDs. The prosecution wanted to learn the facts, according to the PP, but the parents were not participating.

The Public Prosecutor stated that “the CDs cannot be supplied to the petitioner as the judge had already held that no documents pertaining to the case should be given to him until the completion of the investigation,” and that the girl’s parents had displayed her mobile phone during the investigation but had refused to turn it over to the Investigation Officer (IO).

After instructing the parents to turn over the cell phone to the CB-CID, the judge continued the case until October 10.

On August 26, the Madras High Court rejected the possibility of rape and murder and declared the death of the 17-year-old to be a suicide.

On August 30, the High Court had granted the accused persons bail saying that the postmortem report in the case showed that it was a case of suicide. It had said at the time that it was “unfortunate” thus, that teachers had been booked in the case merely for asking the student to study well.

The young girl’s death had caused widespread rioting on July 17 in Kaniyamoor in the Kallakurichi district, with the demonstrators directing their attacks on the school where she was enrolled at the time.

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