Supreme Court restores evidence tampering case against Kerala MLA Antony Raju

The Supreme Court on Tuesday restored criminal proceedings against former Kerala minister Antony Raju in the underwear evidence-tampering case (Antony Raju v State of Kerala and anr)

A Bench of Justices CT Ravikumar and Sanjay Karol asked the trial court to conclude the proceedings within a year.

The verdict came in a plea by the Kerala MLA against the initiation of fresh criminal proceedings against him in the infamous underwear evidence tampering case.

The Supreme Court had in March taken exception to the Kerala government not filing its reply. In July 2023, the Court had stayed fresh proceedings initiated against him.

Raju is the leader of the Janadhipathya Kerala Congress party, which is part of the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) coalition in Kerala. He was also Kerala's Transport Minister until a cabinet reshuffle last year.

The case against Raju stems from an incident that took place around 33 years ago, when he had not yet made his foray into serious politics and was a young lawyer.

An Australian man named Andrew Salvatore Cervelli had been arrested at the Thiruvananthapuram airport for allegedly smuggling 61.5 grams of charas by concealing it in his underwear. Raju represented Cervelli first before the trial court, which eventually convicted and sentenced the Australian man to 10 years imprisonment.

The case, however, took an odd turn when it reached the High Court on an appeal by Cervelli.

The underwear in which the drugs were allegedly smuggled was, at this stage, found to have been way too small to fit Cervelli. This also led to his acquittal from the case.

A few years later, after Cervelli returned to his home country, the investigating officer in the smuggling case approached the Kerala High Court seeking a probe to find out if there was any evidence tampering.

The investigating officer filed this plea based on certain information received from the Australian National Central Bureau,

A criminal complaint was then registered against Raju and a court clerk in 1994. After 12 more years, in 2006, the Assistant Commissioner of Police filed a charge sheet before the magistrate court.

The High Court, however, quashed trial court proceedings on a technical ground in March last year. Pertinently, the High Court clarified that its order would not be a bar on pursuing prosecution as per the provisions of Section 195(1)(b) of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

The High Court went one step further and ordered its Registry itself to initiate proceedings, paving the way for the trial court at Thiruvananthapuram to restart criminal proceedings against Raju.

Raju then moved the top court for relief in light of a Thiruvananthapuram court initiating proceedings against him in the case. The plea was dismissed today.

Before the top court, Senior Advocate R Basant with Advocates Sriram Parakkat, Deepak Prakash, Vishal Somany, Pawan Kr Dabas, Kamal Singh Bisht, Raneev Dahiya, Ravindra Singh, Nachiketa Vajpayee, Divyangna Malik, Vishnu Priya, J Merlyn Rachel, Vardaan Kapoor, Rahul Lakhera, Rahul Suresh, Manshi Sinha and Priyamvada Singh Solanki appeared for Raju.

Advocates Saurabh Ajay Gupta, DK Devesh, Nishant Bishnoi, Srishti Prabhakar and Ritik Gupta appeared for journalist-turned-writer MR Ajayan, a third party in the case.

Senior Advocate PV Dinesh with Advocates Nishe Rajen Shonker, Anu K Joy, Alim Anvar, Anna Oommen, Ajith Anto Perumbully, Deepak Prakash and Amith Krishnan H appeared for the State of Kerala.

Advocate Amith Krishnan H appeared for the complainant, one TG Gopalakrishnan Nair.