Hyderabad: HC orders probe, CBI to come on board, after trial court destroys murder case evidence

Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court has Yesterday ordered a probe by the HC Registrar General after it learned the records, evidence pertaining to decade-old Vijayawada based B.Pharmacy student Ayesha Meera’s murder case was destroyed by the trial court at Vijayawada.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) revealed the case’s shocking details to High Court, TOI reports.

The Hyderabad High Court has now made CBI a party to the case on its own and issued a notice to the agency to come on board.

The bench headed by Chief Justice TB Radhakrishnan and Justice SV Bhatt said: “Destroying records even when the appeal was still being heard in 2014 is a serious matter. The state should pack off the case to CBI. Time has come to take away this case from the AP police and hand it over to CBI.”

SIT probing the case briefed the bench of shocking developments in the case.

The High Court Chief Justice then directed the HC Registrar General to probe all aspects of the case and officials from the courts involved, right from the trail court to High Court and furnish a report within four weeks.

The Bench also questioned AP special counsel Krishna Prakash on the sequence of events of the ghastly murder of Ayesha in December 2007.

The HC had acquitted the innocent man named Satyam Babu who was wrongly implicated in the case by the police officers.

He was then sentenced to life imprisonment in 2010 but HC heard an appeal against the sentence in 2017 and ordered a reopening of the case and probe by the SIT.

Directing the HC Registrar General to immediately take action in the case, the Bench said: “We have to protect the purity of the judicial process and find out who is responsible for this seemingly wanton destruction of records. Find out whether there was undue haste on the part of our system to destroy the records. Keep track of the journey of the case record from lower court to HC.”