New Delhi:
The Supreme Court has resumed the criminal trial in the underwear hashish case against Kerala MLA and former Transport Minister Antony Raju. The criminal trial has once again been resumed in the case of alleged tampering of evidence in the form of “underwear” in the drugs case he fought as a junior lawyer. A bench of Justices CT Ravikumar and Sanjay Karol said that the Kerala High Court had committed an error in holding that the criminal proceedings were barred by Section 195(1)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
The Supreme Court has reinstated the order of the Chief Judicial Magistrate taking cognizance of the charge sheet against Raju on the fact that the crime took place three decades ago and ordered that the trial be concluded within a year. The Supreme Court also admitted that there was no mistake on the part of the Kerala High Court in ordering a fresh investigation against Raju. However, the Supreme Court has rejected the argument that the appellant MR Ajayan had no right to file an appeal in the Supreme Court.
What is ‘Underwear Charas Case’?
Actually, this is the case of 1990. 34 years ago, an Australian man named Andrew Salvatore Cervelli was arrested at Thiruvananthapuram airport for smuggling 61.5 grams of hashish by hiding it in his underwear. At that time Raju used to practice criminal cases in the district court of Kerala. Till then he had not entered active politics. Raju had represented Serveli in the court in the underwear hashish case and the trial court had convicted Serveli under NDPS and sentenced him to 10 years imprisonment.
This decision was challenged by Cervelli in the High Court. After this, Raju was accused of tampering with the underwear. In fact, the underwear in which the hashish was found did not fit Cerveli at all. The underwear was too small to fit Cervelli’s body. On this basis, Serveli was acquitted by the court.
Still the trouble is not over…
However, even after this Raju’s troubles did not end. A few years after Serveli returned to his country, the National Central Bureau of Australia contacted the Kerala High Court giving some shocking information. The investigating officer in the hashish smuggling case there sought an investigation from the Kerala High Court to find out whether underwear, one of the key evidence in the case, was tampered with. Later it was alleged that Advocate Raju had changed his underwear. That short underwear was changed deliberately.
Subsequently, a criminal complaint was filed against Raju and the court clerk in 1994 and 12 years later, in 2006, the Assistant Commissioner of Police filed a charge sheet before the magistrate court. However, the High Court had ended the proceedings against Raju with the argument that for the relevant offence, lower courts cannot take cognizance on the basis of a police report.
However, the High Court had clarified that its order would not stay the prosecution as per the provisions of Section 195(1)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Raju had approached the Supreme Court against the Thiruvananthapuram court initiating proceedings against him in the case. After this, the petitioner had also filed an application in the Supreme Court and now the Supreme Court has resumed the hearing in the case.
