Kochi, March 10 : The Kerala High Court (HC) on Friday quashed the case of an alleged ‘underwear’ evidence tampering against State Transport Minister Antony Raju.
The court gave the verdict on a plea moved by Raju to quash the case against him.
The case dates back to the year 1990 when Raju was a junior lawyer representing an Australian citizen Andrew Salvatore Cervelli, who was accused of smuggling hashish by concealing it in his underwear.
When Cervelli approached the HC in appeal against his conviction by a trial court more than 30 years ago, the underwear in question was found to have mysteriously shrunk in size, leading the HC to acquit Cervelli of all charges.
A few years later, the investigating officer in the smuggling case, approached the HC seeking a probe into the alleged evidence tampering.
Later, an FIR was registered against Raju in 1994 on a complaint filed by an official of the Sessions Court, Thiruvananthapuram.
After 12 years of investigation, in 2006, the Assistant Commissioner of Police filed a charge- sheet before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Thiruvananthapuram, alleging offences under charges of criminal conspiracy, cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property and causing disappearance of evidence of offence.
It was Raju’s argument that the crucial piece of “underwear evidence” was in the custody of the trial court while it was allegedly tampered with and, therefore, it should have been the court in question that initiated the proceedings to look into the case.
But in this case, the proceedings were initiated on the complaint of the police.
His plea pointed out that the court took cognisance of the case upon a charge-sheet by the police and the police have no authority to conduct an investigation in such cases.
The police also cannot file a charge-sheet before the court and the proceedings pending before the court is ‘non-est’ (one that can be ignored altogether) in the eye of law.
Expressing happiness over the verdict, Raju said he was targeted politically by the then Chief Minister Oommen Chandy and a State Minister who was later defeated by him by going ahead with the case.
“I knew I had done no wrong and now I am cleared and at this time I forgive those who worked against me,” said Raju.
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