Chennai
The Madras High Court, while striking down the permission granted to the CBCID to re-enact the crime sequence and take photos and videos of the same at the Nungambakkam Railway Station where Swathi was hacked to death on June 24, instead allowed the re-enactment to be held only inside the central jail at Puzhal.
The XIV metropolitan magistrate in Chennai had granted permission for the re-enactment of the crime and videographing it on July 28. This was based on a plea from the police that forensic experts need CCTV footage of Ramkumar for forensic comparison with the available footage.
Advocate P Ramaraj appearing for Ramkumar objected to this on the basis that there were many eye witnesses in the case and there was no need for the police to videograph Ramkumar. He submitted that it was a ploy to generate images favourable to prosecution.
Justice PN Prakash, while setting aside the Magistrate Court order, said “In the considered opinion of the Court, it is not necessary to take Ramkumar anywhere near the place of occurrence for making him re-enact the crime.” Also, setting aside the objections from Ramkumar’s side that Identification of Prisoners Act does not permit videography, the judge pointed out, “The act was passed in 1920 when photography was the only technology available. Today, technology has improved by leaps and bounds and it will be an anachronism to hold that photography will not include videography.”
The judge also noted that “The taking of videograph per se will not make the suspect criminally liable and that the police were not bound to even hear the objections from the accused since the culpability of the suspect will be determined only during the trial by evidence relevant under the Evidence Act and not otherwise.”
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