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KOCHI: Kerala high court Wednesday acquitted five former police officers, including one who was sentenced to death by a trial court in the Udayakumar custodial murder case. The murder took place at Thiruvananthapuram’s Fort Police Station in 2005.A bench of Justices V Raja Vijayaraghavan and K V Jayakumar set aside the conviction and sentences of former ASI K Jithakumar, former crime branch DSP T Ajith Kumar, retired SP E K Sabu and retired ACP T K Haridas, citing serious lapses in the CBI investigation. Jithakumar and S V Sreekumar had been awarded the death penalty by a CBI special court, while the others were sentenced to three years’ imprisonment. Sreekumar died in 2020, during the pendency of the appeal, while another accused, Soman, had died pending trial.According to the prosecution, P Udayakumar, a 28-year-old man, was picked up by Jithakumar and Sreekumar at around 2.15am on Sept 27, 2005, while with a friend at Sreekanteswaram Park. A sum of Rs 4,000 was recovered from him, and he was taken to Fort Police Station, and then to the circle inspector’s office nearby where he was allegedly subjected to custodial violence. He was later declared dead at the medical college hospital. The prosecution claimed his death resulted from torture in custody.The initial CB-CID probe arraigned only three officers as accused, but the trial faltered as most prosecution witnesses turned hostile. Udayakumar’s mother then moved the HC, which ordered a CBI probe. CBI arraigned eight more police officers as accused; on the same day, their applications seeking pardons were filed before court. Pardon was granted on the condition that they make full and true disclosure of all facts and circumstances. CBI later filed its final report, naming six officers as accused. The trial court convicted and sentenced them, leading to the appeals before the HC.The bench held that CBI committed a serious illegality by filing its final report before a magistrate’s court in a case already committed to a sessions court, thereby violating the right of the accused to a fair trial. The procedure adopted in seeking pardons before the chief judicial magistrate was also found to be ex facie illegal and contrary to mandatory provisions of CrPC.
