Kochi: Eleven documents, including the 5,000-page charge-sheet, post-mortem report and statements of witnesses and accused, in the murder case of SFI leader Abhimanyu M (21) have gone missing from court ahead of the trial.
Abhimanyu, a BSc Chemistry student of Maharaja's College, Ernakulam, was stabbed to death allegedly by activists of the now-banned Popular Front of India, its student organisation Campus Front of India (CFI) and its political outfit SDPI on July 2, 2018.
The charge-sheet, submitted by Assistant Commissioner of Police, Control Room (Kochi city) S T Sureshkumar, named 26 accused, 13 of them directly involved in the murder. According to a court notice, the documents have gone missing from the Court of the Principal Sessions Judge, Ernakulam, Honey M Varghese. The High Court of Kerala has directed her to "reconstruct the missing documents".
According to advocates privy to the matter, the documents went missing from Principal Sessions Judge's Court before December and could not be traced out. As the District and Sessions Judge, Honey Varghese reported the matter to the high court, which on December 1, 2023, directed her to reconstruct the missing documents, said the notice.
The matter became public on Wednesday (March 6), when the Principal Sessions Court asked advocates concerned to submit their objections, if any, in this regard on or before March 17. The case is posted next on March 18.
According to the notice, the missing documents include the charge-sheet, statements of 26 accused and 116 witnesses, autopsy certificate, register of property found in prison search, intimation to police from Medical Trust Hospital on Abhimanyu's close friend Arjun, who was also stabbed, casualty register and card of Vineeth, wound certificate of Rahul K, site plan and certificate issued from the college.
Five years after the murder, in which the Union Home Ministry has an interest because of the alleged involvement of PFI, the trial has not yet begun.
District and Sessions Judge Honey Varghese, who is also trying the 2017 actress abduction and sexual assault case, has courted controversy in the past. In May 2022, the actress approached the High Court accusing the sessions judge of being biased and helping the accused. One of the accused in the case is actor Dileep.
The survivor actress's petition said the forensic science laboratory submitted a report on the memory card on which the assault was recorded. But the judge kept it as a secret document without giving it to the section clerk and making any entries in the court records, the petition alleged.
In the 2022 murder case of Twenty20 activist C K Deepu, his father had moved the High Court alleging the prosecution was colluding with the accused, who were CPM activists. He wanted the bail hearing to be transferred out of Judge Honey Varghese's court because she is the daughter of CPM's Thrissur District Secretary M M Varghese.
The High Court not only transferred the bail petition to the Thrissur Sessions Court but also made observations in the order that the "apprehension of the father of the victim has some basis".
Judge Honey Varghese moved the Supreme Court to expunge the two paragraphs in the High Court order questioning her probity. The Supreme Court has stayed the two impugned paragraphs.
In Abhimanyu's case, advocates said that the missing documents could be revived because the investigating team would have copies of all the documents. The charge-sheet was also shared with all the accused.
