Chennai: The Madras High Court on Friday directed the Tamil Nadu police to respond to a plea filed by the accused named in Kodanad heist cum murder case. The plea sought the police to examine the former chief minister Edappadi K Palaniswami and later chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s close aide VK Sasikala.
According to a report from IANS, three accused named in the case - D Deepu, A Santhosh Samy and MS Satheeshan - filed a revised petition before the Madras High Court after the trial court refused to summon both Palaniswami and Sasikala. The Kodanad heist cum murder case took place in 2017.
The report said, A single-judge bench of Justice M Nirmal Kumar directed the Sholurmattam police officials in Nilgiris district to file its reply to the plea and directed the public prosecutor, Hassan Mohammed Jinnah, to ensure that the reply is filed by September 27.
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The report further said that while passing orders on April 30, 2021 the District sessions Judge C Sanjai Babu has said that the accused had filed a petition before him to summon nine individuals including Palaniswami, Sasikala and her relatives Elvarasi and Sudhakaran, former Nilgiris collector Shankar and former Nilgiris Superintendent of Police Murali Rambha.
As Palaniswami was the Chief Minister then, the trial court said that the chief minister cannot be summoned without any relevance, the report added.
Meanwhile, the prime accused KV Sayan also filed a separate petition before the trial court to summon and examine the nine individuals.