Wife sells ill man’s land; HC orders CB-CID probe

Justice PN Prakash before whom the petition filed by Ananthan, a Charted Accountant, seeking to re-investigate the abduction came up, directed Gudalur Police to hand over the investigation to the CB-CID, North Zone, immediately. As per the case, Manoj Rajan was the only son of E J Rajan an industrialist. But since Manoj was congenitally speech and hearing impaired, his mental growth was stunted. After his mother’s death, he was put in a home for the disabled. 

Subsequently, he was married to one Priya Darshini on September 29, 2008. But within a year, Priya Darshini obtained divorce stating that Manoj was mentally ill. Then EJ Rajan died on December 26, 2013 leaving behind huge properties to Manoj. He through a letter on March 24, 2009 had asked Ananthan, to maintain his property and look after his son. Thereafter, Ananthan lodged Manoj in a home for the mentally ill in Gudalur in 2014. 

Priya Darshini filed an habeas corpus plea in 2015 contending that he was being kept under illegal detention by Ananthan. But the plea was dismissed. On May 4, 2016 Priya Darshini and a group of lawyers abducted Manoj from the charity home by force.  Though a complaint was lodged, the Gudalur police failed to register an FIR, prompting Ananthan to approach MHC. During the course of the hearing it was found that after the abduction Priya Darshini re-married Manoj Rajan and the registration was done within a day. 

Apart from this, it has also been established that a property of Manoj has been sold for Rs.1.67 crore. Justice Prakash noting that the manner in which the whole episode had proceeded has made the Court ‘smell a rat’, said, “By no stretch of imagination, can one countenance the act of Priya Darshini, the divorced wife, to barge into a Charity Home with a group of lawyers and take forcible custody of a person and have the marriage performed in such a hurry.”