The Karnataka High Court Thursday granted an interim stay in the investigation into the alleged Dharmasthala burials case after a group of activists who had backed the complainant approached the court against the probe.
The matter was heard by a bench of Justice Mohammad Nawaz.
In their petition, the activists requested the quashing of the case and the Special Investigation Team (SIT) notices issued to them in connection with it. The petitioners in the matter are Girish Mattennavar, Mahesh Thimarody, Jayanth T, and Vittala Gowda.
A former RSS worker, Thimarody sheltered the Dharmasthala complainant C N Chinnaiah at his home. Mattennavar previously contested the Karnataka Assembly polls on a BJP ticket. Chinnaiah later became an accused in the matter after allegedly having given false evidence.
In his original complaint and FIR registered at the Belthangady Police Station, Chinnaiah stated that while he was working as a sanitation worker at Dharmasthala, where he had been forced to bury a large number of bodies between 1998 and 2014.
“I buried dead bodies in several locations throughout the Dharmasthala area. Sometimes, as instructed, I burned dead bodies using diesel. They would instruct me to burn them completely so that no trace would be found. The dead bodies disposed of in this manner numbered in the hundreds,” Chinnaiah said in the First Information Report.
An impleading application in the Dharmasthala case by Abhishek M, a YouTuber who covered the Dharmasthala issue, focused on similar grounds as the main petition. Abhishek argued he was repeatedly summoned and interrogated for several days in the matter, a contention also made by the petitioners.
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The application argued that several non-cognizable sections had been added to the FIR (dealing with false evidence), which should have been done only after a reasoned order from a magistrate. The same argument of a non-cognizable section was also made with regard to the initial registration of the case.
It argued that if Chinnaiah had repudiated his statement, “The registration and continuation of the FIR….constitute a manifest abuse of process….”.
Arguing before Justice Mohammad Nawaz Thursday, the petitioners’ counsel stated that they had been issued notices nine times and questioned for more than 100 hours in the matter.
Arguing on behalf of the State, Additional State Public Prosecutor BN Jagadeesha stated, “Initially, they (petitioners) were summoned as witnesses along with the complainant (Chinnaiah), whom they were hosting… Then the complainant says, ‘I have been forced to give a statement by these people’. Only then have we issued notices under Section 35 of the BNSS [Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita].”
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Justice Nawaz also orally enquired as to why a separate case had not been registered in the matter.
After hearing the submissions from both sides, Justice Nawaz granted a stay on the investigation and also restrained the summons issued to the petitioners by the SIT until the next hearing date.