Complete investigation into murder of K.N. Ramajeyam as early as possible, Madras High Court directs SIT

Madras HC orders SIT to complete probe into 2012 murder of K.N. Ramajeyam & file final report. Petition filed by victim's brother N. Ravichandran to transfer investigation from CBI to State police. SIT examined 1,040 witnesses & HC expressed satisfaction over probe, closing petition.

The Madras High Court on Monday closed a petition pending before it since last year with a direction to a Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the 2012 murder of K.N. Ramajeyam, brother of Municipal Administration Minister K.N. Nehru, to complete the investigation and file a final report before the jurisdictional court as early as possible.

Justice G. Jayachandran passed the orders on the petition filed by the victim’s other brother N. Ravichandran, who had approached the court last year for getting the investigation transferred from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to State police, due to the former’s failure to make any breakthrough since it took over the probe in 2017.

Accepting the petitioner’s request, Justice V. Bharathidasan (since retired) in February 2022 ordered constitution of the SIT comprising State police officers and included a CBI Deputy Superintendent of Police too in the team to continue the probe and decided to monitor the investigation through periodical status reports to be filed in the court.

Since then, the SIT had been informing the High Court of the progress made by it periodically. When the case was heard on Monday, the team stated it had examined 1,040 witnesses and senior counsel N.R. Elango, representing the petitioner, too expressed satisfaction over the probe. Hence, the judge decided to close the petition.

The body of Ramajeyam, a businessman dealing with granite mining, real estate and exports, was found on the banks of Cauvery on the outskirts of Tiruchi on March 29, 2012. The circumstances indicated he was done to death after being abducted during his morning walk. Initially, the case was handled by the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department.

Since the CB-CID could not solve the case till 2017, the victim’s wife Latha Ramajeyam approached the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court and got the case transferred to the CBI which too could not make any headway, forcing the family members of the deceased to make another application for the constitution of a SIT.