Antony Raju, Kerala Minister for Transport, the second accused in the infamous “evidence tampering” case to save an Australian citizen who was arrested for narcotics smuggling got a reprieve on Wednesday as Justice Ziyad Rehman of the Kerala High Court stayed for one month all proceedings against the former in the trial court.
George, the petitioner from Thrissur had approached the High Court with a plea to find out the reasons behind the inordinate delay in the trial of the case filed against the minister way back in the 1990s when the latter was a junior lawyer practicing at Thiruvananthapuram.The case against the minister was that he along with a court staff played a crucial role in tampering with the evidence (an underwear) that was used by the drug smuggler Andrew Salvatore Cervelli to transport 62 gms hashish into India.
Though the trial court had sentenced Cervelli to ten years rigorous imprisonment, the Kerala High Court acquitted him of all charges when he filed an appeal challenging the lower court verdict. Antony Raju who appeared for Cervelli told the court that the underwear which was presented as an exhibit by the prosecution was too small to carry 62 gm hashish and this was accepted by the Court.
But the investigating officer of the case told the court that Interpol had alerted the CBI about the tampering of the evidence, the underwear, at the instance of Raju, Following the disclosure by the CBI, the Kerala Police had filed a case against Antony Raju for the crime. The case was making tardy progress forcing George to approach the Court to give a direction to the trial court to speed up the process. But Raju in a petition told the court on Wednesday that there were lapses in the procedures in filing the charges against him. According to Raju, the case should have been filed by the trial court and not by the police.
“The crucial piece of "underwear evidence" was in the custody of the trial court while it was allegedly tampered with and, therefore, it should have been the court in question that initiated the proceedings to look into the same. However, in this case, the proceedings were initiated on the complaint of the police,” Raju’s lawyer told the Court.
Judge Rehman opined that Raju had made a prima facie case in his favour as the offences alleged can only be prosecuted on the basis of a complaint by the court concerned or an officer authorised by it, and not the police as was done in the instant and hence stayed all proceedings in the case for one month.
The particulars of the case dates back to 1990 when Raju was a junior lawyer representing Cervelli, who was sentenced by the trial court for ten years rigorous imprisonment for smuggling hashish to India by concealing it in his underwear.
When Cervelli approached the High Court in appeal against his conviction by a trial court over 30 years ago, the underwear in question was found to have mysteriously shrunk in size, leading the High Court to acquit Cervelli of all charges.
A few years later, the investigating officer in the smuggling case, approached the High Court seeking a probe into the alleged evidence tampering. Subsequently a first information report (FIR) was registered against Raju in 1994 on a complaint filed by Sessions Court, Thiruvananthapuram.
After 12 years of investigation, in 2006, the Assistant Commissioner of Police filed a charge sheet before the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Thiruvananthapuram alleging offenses under sections 120(B) (criminal conspiracy), 420 (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 201(causing disappearance of evidence of offence), 193, 217, and 34 of the IPC.