New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday (November 20) restored criminal proceedings against former Kerala transport minister Antony Raju before a trial court in an alleged underwear evidence tampering case.
A bench comprising Justice CT Ravikumar and Justice Sanjay Karol dismissed Raju’s plea and directed the trial court to conclude the proceedings in the case within a year.
The verdict of the top court, which had earlier in July last year stayed the fresh proceedings against Raju, came on a plea filed by Raju against the Kerala High Court order paving way for initiation of fresh proceedings against him the case. The apex court bench, while delivering its verdict, said that the order of the High Court allowing fresh proceedings against Raju was bad in law.
Raju is accused of conspiring with a court clerk and replacing an underwear in a drug trafficking case
Former minister and serving MLA Raju is accused of tampering with evidence dating back to 1990 when he was a junior lawyer representing an Australian national accused of smuggling hashish to India by concealing it in his underwear.
It has been alleged by the prosecution that Raju conspired with a Thiruvananthapuram court clerk and replaced a material object – an underwear – in a drug trafficking case.
Why did High Court acquit Australian national in a drug trafficking case?
The Australian national was awarded 10 years of rigorous imprisonment by the trial court, however, the High Court later acquitted him after the underwear presented as evidence in the trial court was found to be smaller in size and could not have been worn by the Australian at the time of his arrest. It has been alleged that Raju secured the release of the Australian through tampering of evidence conspiring with a court clerk.
The Investigating officer in the smuggling case later approached the High Court seeking a probe into the alleged evidence tampering and subsequently a First Information Report (FIR) was registered against Raju in 1994.
High Court directed for appropriate action against relevant legal provisions
The High Court had quashed the proceedings against Raju noting some technical grounds in the case on March 10 last year, however, it had clarified that its order “would not preclude the competent authority, or the court concerned from taking up the matter and pursuing the prosecution in compliance with the procedure contemplated under section 195(1)(b) of the CrPC (Code of Criminal Procedure).”
The High Court had further directed the Registry to take appropriate action under the relevant provisions of the CrPC without any delay, saying “Though, this court interfered in the proceedings for technical reasons, it cannot be ignored that the allegations raised are serious in nature”.
