The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (Metro) in Chennai to file a status report on the progress it has made in its one-year investigation into the murder of a human rights lawyer's son in 2011. Advocate R. Sankarasubbu’s 24-year-old son S. Sathish Kumar, a law graduate, died in June 2011. The father was known for taking up human rights cases against the police. The son's death had caused a furore.
The case, which was initially probed by the State Police, was handed over to the CBI in 2012. The CBI filed a report concluding that the case was one of suicide.
The Madras High Court had set up a Special Investigation Team (SIT) led by former CBI Director R.K. Raghavan. The SIT, after enquiring into the death, filed a report with the findings that the young man was actually murdered. However, the SIT could not zero in on the persons.
The High Court, on the basis of the SIT report, gave the case to the CB-CID on February 4, last year. Appearing before a Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, senior advocate R. Basant and advocate Rahul Shyam Bhandari, for Mr. Sankarasubbu, argued that the CB-CID has not filed a single report since February 2021 even though the High Court had directed them to file quarterly status reports before it. Mr. Basant submitted that the family had serious suspicions whether the investigation would be fair.
The court finally issued notice to the Tamil Nadu government. It directed the CB-CID (Metro) to file its status report, indicating the progress made in the course of one year, in three weeks.
