The Karnataka High Court Thursday stated that two petitioners seeking an investigation into more alleged burial sites concerning the Dharmasthala burials case must submit more independent information apart from that put forth by the initial complainant.
The petition, brought by two Dakshina Kannada residents, including the uncle of a 17-year-old girl who had been sexually assaulted and murdered in 2012, is being heard by a bench consisting of Justice M Nagaprasanna.
The petition requested that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the matter be directed to inspect and excavate the sites identified by the petitioners, or to appoint a court commissioner to accompany the petitioners to the site.
The counsel for the petitioners, Deepak Khosla, stated that if the SIT went to the sites indicated by the petitioners with sniffer dogs, etc, they might find dozens more skeletal remains over those already discovered.
Special Public Prosecutor B N Jagadeesha stated, “Their case is based on two representations given to SIT. Basis is the statement made by the original complainant (Chinnaiah), who is now treated as an accused… our investigation discloses that he is lying.”
On a query from the bench regarding what independent information the petitioners had, Khosla said, “They have visited certain sites and found that what the complainant had told them is substantially true… Do we need a thousand bodies? Ten bodies?”
The bench orally observed that more people might then start coming before the court and claim that they had seen the bodies, comparing the situation to a “Pandora’s box”.
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Khosla further stated that apart from the original 13 sites identified by Chinnaiah, the petitioners had come upon more but had not disclosed them for fear of tampering with evidence.
The court ordered, “The issue now would be if the petitioners have independent information other than what was already in possession of the original complainant, which was investigated into and all the investigation process had culminated into the original complainant himself turning an accused. They are at liberty to place them on record by the next date.”
The case will be heard further on September 26.