Telangana High Court: In the present case, various writ petitions were filed by petitioners-accused to quash the proceedings against them registered in Gachibowli Police Station, Hyderabad, for the offences punishable under Section 306 of the Penal Code, 1860 (‘IPC’) and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. E.V. Venugopal, J., after considering that the prosecution had already filed closure report citing the crime as ‘lack of evidence’ disposed of all the writ petitions giving liberty to the de facto complaint to avail the remedies as available under law to challenge the closure of the case as ‘lack of evidence’ since the closure report filed by the prosecution was pending adjudication before the trial Court.
Background
Podile Apparao, Vice-Chancellor, University of Hyderabad, in collusion with university authorities and having been instigated by Bandaru Dattatreya, the then Member of Parliament of Secunderabad Constituency; N. Ramachandra Rao, the then Member of Legislative Council for the State of Telangana; Krishna Chaitanya, the then General Secretary, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP); Nandanam Susheel Kumar, the then President of ABVP; and Nandanam Diwakar, the then Vice-President of BJP Party, Ranga Reddy District, harassed the de-facto complainant, Dontha Prashanth, Rohith Vemula, and others, who belong to the Scheduled Caste and were members of the Ambedkar Students Association (‘ASA’).
The de facto complainant submitted that when ASA conducted a protest gathering against ABVP attack on Montage Film Society, Nandanam Susheel Kumar posted a message on Facebook stating that the ASA candidates were goons and when the ASA members resisted the same, he expressed his apologies. However, due to the intervention of political interests into the picture, the said incident took a different shape naming the members of ASA as antisocial elements resulting in suspension of some of the students including Rohith Vemula. The university authorities did not permit the students of ASA into the hostels, common areas of the university, and administrative building due to which, they resided in open area of the campus for days together.
Further, Rohith Vemula was a UGC-JRF fellow-ship recipient and due to the ongoing situation, the said scholarship was stopped for seven months. Thereafter, unable to bear such atrocities, humiliation, harassment, insults, and injustice, Rohith Vemula, who was doing a Ph.D. in Science, Technology and Society Studies at the University of Hyderabad, committed suicide. Consequently, the crime was registered, and the present writ petitions were filed seeking to quash the criminal proceedings initiated against the accused persons.
The Commissioner of Police, Cyberabad, based on the opinion given by the Additional Public Prosecutor, permitted that the present case might be referred to as ‘lack of evidence’ vide Memo No. 50/C5/CD-File/Cyb/2024, dated 18-03-2024. Accordingly, the prosecution, after duly serving notice to the de facto complainant through registered post, filed the final report under Section 173 of Criminal Procedure Code, 1973, before the Trial Court and the same was pending adjudication.
Analysis, Law, and Decision
The Court referred to the report of the Dy. Commissioner of Police, Madhapur Zone, Cyberabad and noted that Rohith Vemula did not belong to the Scheduled Caste and his mother got him the Scheduled Caste Certificate and that Rohith Vemula’s younger brother settled in life and he instead of concentrating on his studies and career, spent more time in student politics which adversely effected his studies and career. The Court also noted that multiple issues could have driven Rohith Vemula to commit suicide and despite the best efforts of the investigating officer no evidence could be collected to establish that the actions of the petitioners had driven Rohith Vemula to commit suicide.
The Court, after considering that the prosecution had already filed closure report citing the crime as ‘lack of evidence’ and since there were rival contentions with regard to issuance of notice and receipt of the same by the de facto complainant, without expressing any opinion on the merits and demerits of the petitions and also on the veracity or sanctity of the closure report, disposed of all the writ petitions giving liberty to the de facto complaint to avail the remedies as available under law to challenge the closure of the case as ‘lack of evidence’ since the closure report filed by the prosecution was pending adjudication before the trial Court.
[N. Susheel Kumar v. State of Telangana, 2024 SCC OnLine TS 912, Order dated 03-05-2024]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: V T Kalyan, Advocate
For the Respondent: GP for Home
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