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Gokulraj murder case: Court pulls up prime witness over ‘turning hostile’
“She (Swathi) looked at her own image and said that it was not her. The judges said that they will not close the case until they bring out the truth,” said an advocate who was representing the state, requesting anonymity.
Faith and justice are more important than the caste, justices M S Ramesh and N Anand Venkatesh of Madurai bench of the Madras high court said on Friday. The court passed the remarks after the prime witness in the 2015 murder case of a Dalit man allegedly turned hostile.
The beheaded body of V Gokulraj, 21, was found on railway tracks in Tamil Nadu’s Namakkal district in 2015.
The court slammed prime witness Swathi for turning hostile, during the proceedings. “She (Swathi) looked at her own image and said that it was not her. The judges said that they will not close the case until they bring out the truth,” said an advocate who was representing the state, requesting anonymity.
A special court in Madurai in March had pronounced life imprisonment for 10 convicts for killing Gokulraj. The main accused, S Yuvaraj, received life imprisonment on three counts. Gokulraj was allegedly murdered because he was seen at a temple talking to Swathi who belongs to the Gounder caste of Yuvaraj, people in the know of the matter said.
The present case came up after the accused had challenged their conviction and sentencing while Gokuraj’s mother had moved court to enhance the punishment of the convicts to capital punishment. The state had appealed against the acquittals.The court has been hearing the case since November 15.
On Thursday, the bench had said that to “satisfy our judicial conscience, particularly in the light of the fact that this case is loaded with communal overtones”, they are exercising powers under Section 391 CrPC suo motu (read with Section 165 of the Indian Evidence Act) to recall Swathi to the witness box. Swathi is presently living in Namakkal district in her matrimonial home.
Having gone through the record of the trial court, the bench found that Swathi had initially played an active role in assisting the prosecution at the stage of investigation. Being a “star witness”, her statement was recorded by the magistrate under Section 164 CrPc. But the court said that something had transpired between the date of recording of the statement and the time she was called to depose in her examination-in-chief before the trial court that she “completely turned turtle”.
“The trial court, without exercising power under Section 165 CrPC and eliciting the cause for this sudden somersault, simply declared PW-4 (Swathi) as hostile and discarded her evidence,” the court said summoning her on Friday noting this “as a lapse on the part of the trial court”.
“There could be no greater affront to the system of administration of justice if the courts are to remain mute spectators when star witnesses turn hostile in front of it,” the judges said on Thursday. “Unlike the trial court which was rest content with playing the role of an umpire in a criminal trial, this court cannot remain a mute spectator to what, prima facie, appears to be an attempt to derail and subvert the course of justice.”
Swathi was brought in with police protection as directed by the court. Police are also to ensure that no one meets her and makes any phone calls to her and her family members.
When the judges played a video of her and the deceased, a teary-eyed Swathi said that she was unsure if it was her and failed to identify Gokulraj. The judges found her answer contradictory. Reports said that Swathi fainted in court. The case has been adjourned to November 30. “Police protection has been extended for her until then,” said the advocate quoted above.
The judges observed that they cannot complete the hearing by the end of next week. “In view of the above, the registry is directed to place this order before the Hon’ble Administrative Judge, in order to enable the Hon’ble Administrative Judge to pass appropriate administrative orders to enable us to continue hearing these criminal appeals, even after our tenure ends on 02.12.2022,” the judges said in their order.
