V.K. Sasikala and Edappadi K. Palaniswami. File
| Photo Credit: The Hindu
The Madras High Court on Friday (December 6, 2024) allowed a joint plea made by three accused in the 2017 Kodanad estate heist-cum-murder case to summon former Chief Minister and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K. Palaniswami, former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa’s aide V.K. Sasikala, and a few of her relatives and examine them as defence witnesses before the trial court.
Justice P. Velmurugan allowed the criminal revision petition filed by the accused persons, D. Deepu, M.S. Satheesan, and A. Santhosh Samy, in 2021 against the refusal of the sessions court in the Nilgiris district to summon and examine Mr. Palaniswami, Ms. Sasikala, and seven others in connection with the crime reported at the sprawling tea estate jointly owned by Jayalalithaa and her aide.
The judge had reserved orders on the criminal revision petition on November 15, 2024, after wondering why Mr. Palaniswami should not be summoned and examined as a witness now, since he was not Chief Minister of the State anymore. He took note that the sessions court had on April 30, 2021, refused to summon and examine him, citing he was Chief Minister.
“Mr. Palaniswami being the present Chief Minister of the State, the accused cannot just like that abuse the process of the court to summon the Chief Minister as a defence witness without any relevancy,” the sessions court had observed. However, the petitioners’ counsel Romeo Roy Alfred had insisted that the examination of the nine witnesses was absolutely essential in the heist-cum-murder case.
Besides Mr. Palaniswami and Ms. Sasikala, the three criminal revision petitioners before the High Court had insisted on the examination of her relatives J. Elavarasi and V.N. Sudhakaran; former Nilgiris Collector P. Shankar; former Superintendent of Police Murali Rambha; AIADMK State organiser Sajeevan; the estate manager Natarajan; and another individual named Sunil.
The prime accused in the murder-cum-heist case K.V. Sayan had also filed a petition to summon an equal number of nine individuals, but the only common witness in both the petitions was the estate manager Mr. Natarajan. The other witnesses whom he wanted to examine included an Assistant Director of Forensic Sciences Lab and Coimbatore Government Medical College Hospital’s Dean, among others.
The sessions court had passed common orders on both the petitions on April 30, 2021, and permitted the examination of only three witnesses, which included Mr. Natarajan, Forensic Sciences Assistant Director S. Raj Mohan, and an Assistant Engineer of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, Kodanad Division. The request to summon and examine all the others was rejected on various grounds.
Published – December 06, 2024 03:11 pm IST
