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Kochi | The Kerala High Court has acquitted four former police officers who were convicted by a sessions court in 2018 for the death of a 28-year-old man in their custody back in 2005.

A bench of Justices Raja Vijayaraghavan V and K V Jayakumar set aside the conviction of the four, one of whom was sentenced to death by the sessions court, saying that a "flawed and tainted investigation" by the CBI led to the failure of the prosecution case.

There were six police officers who were accused in the case, but one died during the trial in the sessions court and another, who was also sentenced to death, passed away while his appeal was pending in the High Court.

While granting relief to the remaining four, the bench said that the evidence produced before the sessions court during trial was not sufficient to hold the accused guilty of the offence of custodial death.

"The findings recorded in the impugned judgment (of the sessions court) holding the appellants guilty of charges framed against them are based on conjectures and surmises and hence, the same is unsustainable under law," it said.

The High Court termed the probe by the CBI, to which the case was handed over on the plea of the victim's family, as "high-handed" and said that a "wholly illegal procedure" was adopted by the agency by converting an eyewitness, who had no real connection with the incident, into an approver.

The bench also pointed out that the CBI "indiscriminately" arrayed all witnesses and "coerced them at gunpoint" into becoming approvers and extracted their assent on the condition that they parrot the agency's version of events.

The other irregularities in the CBI probe the High Court pointed out in its 142-page judgement were -- "filing applications for tender of pardon before a court lacking jurisdiction to entertain the same and laying a supplementary report before a court equally devoid of jurisdiction".

"The procedure adopted by the CBI in seeking the tender of pardon, in a case which had already been committed and trial was pending, by filing an application before the Chief Judicial Magistrate, is ex facie illegal..," the High Court said.

All this amounted to "nothing short of a tainted and vitiated investigation" and a "serious failure of justice", the bench said.

It also violated the rights of the accused to have a fair trial, it added.

The High Court further said that there were major contradictions in the testimonies of the prosecution witnesses, most of whom are approvers, "accompanied by glaring investigative defects".

"We are compelled to hold that a flawed and tainted investigation has eventually led to the failure of the prosecution case involving the gruesome death of Udayakumar," it said.

Ajith Kumar, SV Sreekumar, K Jithakumar and EK Sabu, the accused in Udayakumar custodial death

Then 28-year-old Udayakumar was picked up by two police officers attached to the Fort Police Station, Thiruvananthapuram, on September 27, 2005 at around 2.15 am while he was standing with his friend Suresh Kumar at Sreekanteswaram Park in the state capital, the prosecution had said.

It had also told the court that he was taken to the Fort Police Station and thereafter to the nearby office of the Circle Inspector, where he was subjected to custodial interrogation involving the use of force and infliction of injuries.

"Later, on the same day, Udayakumar was declared dead at approximately 11.40 pm at the Medical College Hospital, Thiruvananthapuram. The post-mortem revealed severe crush injuries to both thighs, which were determined to be the cause of death.

"The prosecution case is that the death of Udayakumar was the result of custodial violence and torture inflicted under the shield of police uniform and authority, within the confines of a Police Station," the High Court noted in its order.

The sessions court had sentenced two of the accused to death by hanging and the remaining three to varying sentences.

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