The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday dismissed the bail petition filed by the suspended Inspector of Police S. Sridhar, the prime accused in the Sattankulam custodial deaths case of trader P. Jayaraj and his son J. Benicks.
Justice P. Vadamalai observed Sridhar was involved in the heinous, brutal murder of Jayaraj and Benicks who were beaten with ‘lathi’ in the lock-up when they were brought to the police station in connection with some other offence. After they were remanded in judicial custody, they fell ill and died in the hospital. The medical officers of the Forensic Medicine and Toxicology Department of Tirunelveli Government Medical College Hospital gave the final opinion that both appeared to have died of complications of blunt injury sustained. So, the alleged charges against the petitioner are serious in nature. Moreover, the case is admittedly almost at the end of the trial, the court observed.
The Special Public Prosecutor appearing for CBI strongly objected to the bail petition and submitted that each of the nine accused has cross examined the prosecution witnesses at length and the trial court was unable to dispose of the case within the stipulated period as directed by the High Court.
The petitioner participated in the trial in person and cross examined the witnesses at length by taking a number of hearings. The Judicial Magistrate was cross examined for 26 hearings from October 16, 2023 to February 2, 2024 and the Investigating Officer I was cross examined for 21 hearings from March 27, 2024 to September 26, 2024, it was submitted.
Now, the case is pending for cross examination of the Investigating Officer II who deposed evidence in chief for 14 hearings at the instance of the petitioner. The prosecution said the petitioner would take much time for cross examination of the Investigating Officer II. The intention of the petitioner and the other accused was only to drag the proceedings, not enabling the trial court to dispose of the case, the court was told. J. Selvarani, wife of Jayaraj and mother of Benicks opposed the bail petition of Sridhar.
The petitioner mainly sought bail for the reason of preparing the argument. It was not a valid ground to grant bail. The argument put forth by CBI, as well as the intervening petitioner, that if the petitioner was granted bail, he would definitely abscond and the trial of the case before the trial court would be highly affected and the direction for disposal of the High Court would be defeated, has some strong force, the court observed and dismissed the petition.
Published – June 24, 2025 12:27 am IST
