Tanvi Sinha
Father Thomas Kottoor, who was arrested with relation to the Sister Abhaya case in 2008 by the CBI and convicted by a special CBI court on the same December 2020, has appealed to the High Court regarding his conviction.
The appeal will be heard by a two-judge bench of Justice K Vinod Chandran and Justice M R Anitha on 19th January 2021, on Tuesday.
The appeal is made on the grounds that the previous judgement has been absolutely erroneous and was infected with “illegalities”. There is also an appeal of how a story of unreliable circumstances was picked out from unreliable solitary witnesses.
In the Special CBI court judgement, CBI Judge K Sanilkumar ruled Father Kottoor, and his co-accused Sister Sephy, guilty with a life sentence for murder and liable to pay 5 lakhs of amount as fine. Father Kottoor was further charged with trespass and liable to 1 lakh as fine.
The judge on the case had stated that shadowy doubts and procedural errors should not be a bind on a court to carry out justice.
The judgement was rolled out on 23rd December last year after almost 30 years (the case starting in 1992) of investigation and criminal trial. This happens to be the longest for Kerala.
In a situation that became a household name in Kerala in the coming years, the investigation by the police and the Kerala crime branch stated the death, despite Abhaya’s suspicious wounds, was a suicide in 1992.
After outrage, the case was then passed to the CBI, where the case was yet again ruled a suicide. Subsequently a dummy test was done which showed that homicide could not be ruled out.
Even then however no arrests were made all the way till 2008 when three arrests were made by the CBI.
The story behind the murder, as stated by the Special CBI court was that in 1992, Sister Abhaya had witnessed intimate relations between Kottoor, Sephy and a third accused (released for lack of evidence) Father Jose Poothrikkayil.
Following this the court resolved that Sister Sephy had in panic hit Abhaya with an Axe and later they had drowned the young woman in a well, where her dead body was then found on 27th March 1992.