The Kerala High Court today declined to stay a single bench’s decision, upholding slapping of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act by the CBI against ruling CPI (M) strongman P Jayarajan and other accused in a case relating to the murder of an RSS worker in Kannur district in 2014.
Considering a plea filed by Jayarajan, challenging the single bench decision of March 15, the division bench, headed by Chief Justice Antony Dominic, however, issued notice to the CBI and other respondents in the Kathiroor Manoj murder case.
Earlier, refusing to interfere with the slapping of UAPA by the CBI against the accused in the case, the single bench had said the investigating agency need not obtain the state government’s sanction to invoke provisions of the Act and rejected the petition filed by Jayarajan and others.
Jayarajan, also Kannur district secretary of the CPI(M), was named by the CBI as “principal conspirator” in the murder.
The high court had said that either the central government or the state government can grant sanction to invoke UAPA against the accused, who come under the purview of the Act.
The CBI, after taking over the probe from the state police, had charged him under the stringent UAPA for the killing, which it described as a “terrorist act“.
In its supplementary final report filed before the court of the special judge of Ernakulam, the Special Crime Branch of the CBI’s Thiruvananthapuram unit, which probed the case, has said the September 1, 2014 killing was “a well-conspired, planned and well-organised political murder“.
Describing as “terrorist act” the “brutal” killing of the functionary, Elanthottathil Manoj, also known as Kathirur Manoj, the CBI charged Jayarajan under various sections, including Sections 18 and 19 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967.
Jayarajan, also facing charges under various IPC sections including 120(b) (conspiracy), is the 25th accused in the case.
The CBI, in its report, had accused Jayarajan of having entered into a criminal conspiracy with first accused Vikraman to carry out the killing of Manoj in a brutal and terrorising manner.
Forty-two-year-old Manoj, an RSS district functionary, was hacked to death in Kathiroor in Kannur district on September 1, 2014, allegedly by a group of CPI(M) workers.