Murder of DMK activist lawyer; SC seeks reply of Tamil Nadu, DGP on plea of widow for CBI probe

The Supreme Court has sought responses from the Tamil Nadu government and its DGP on a plea of a woman lawyer seeking a CBI probe into the brutal murder of her advocate husband, who was also a political activist belonging to a Scheduled Caste, in 2020.

A bench comprising Justices B R Gavai and B V Nagarathna took note of the submissions of senior lawyer K Subramaniam, appearing for T Sandhya, widow of deceased lawyer K Rajkumar, that the Madras High Court wrongly dismissed her plea for a CBI probe.

“Issue notice returnable in four weeks. In addition to normal mode of service, liberty to serve the respondents through standing counsel. Dasti service in addition is permitted,” the bench said in its order.

Subramaniam, in a brief hearing on last Friday, alleged the deceased lawyer, belonging to a SC community, was associated with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and some local police officers, belonging to a strong backward class community ‘Kallar’, were inimical to him after he had canvassed for a DMK leader in a local body election.

He said the high court, while dismissing the plea, failed to take note of the fact that local police, which had filed the FIR belatedly in the murder, hurriedly submitted the charge sheet after the petition was taken note by the high court.

“The Madras High Court, by the impugned order, dismissed the writ petition filed by his wife Sandhya, also an advocate, on the technical ground that the charge sheet was already filed on the date of hearing of the writ petition,” the senior lawyer said.

Sandhya and her husband Rajkumar were practising as advocates at Tiruvarur courts in Tamil Nadu.

The deceased lawyer, due to previous enmity with some local policemen on caste and political grounds, had sent representation to the high officials besides filing a judicial complaint in a local court under the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

The deceased had refused to withdraw the complaint even after being threatened by some policemen to take back the case, the petition submitted.

It was under these “mysterious circumstances” the advocate was brutally murdered on the night of October 12, 2020 when he had gone to his field for watering crops in Tiruvarur district, it said.