Kochi: The Kerala high court on Tuesday completed hearing in the appeal filed by Cardinal George Alencherry challenging a single bench’s order to register FIR against him and others in Syro Malabar Church land sale row.
A division bench led by chief justice Antony Dominic has reserved the case for pronouncing its judgment on whether the single bench’s order of March 6th needs to be interfered with.
The cardinal has contended before the division bench that the single bench’s order to register an FIR is not legally sustainable. The complaint filed by police is based on hearsay and an FIR shouldn’t have been ordered to be registered on its basis, a counsel representing the cardinal argued in court.
An order for registering an FIR was issued by the single bench on a petition filed by Shine Varghese of Cherthala questioning non-registration of FIR by Ernakulam Central police despite filing a complaint. In addition to Cardinal Alencherry, the complaint before police had named priests Joshy Puthuva and Sebastian Vadakkumpadan as well as middleman Saju Varghese of Vazhakkala. They were sought to be booked for criminal conspiracy, criminal breach of trust, and cheating. On March 16th, the division bench had issued a stay on the single bench’s order after the cardinal.
During the appeal hearing, senior public prosecutor Suman Chakravarthy argued that there was suppression of material facts by the petitioner before the court. The court was not told that police had recorded the statement of a person who filed a complaint seeking registration of FIR in the church land row. A complaint was filed by Martin Payyappally and when the assistant commissioner recorded the statement as directed by the IG, it was found that they did not know the details or have any direct knowledge about the offences alleged. Due to this, police had closed the complaint. However, this was suppressed when a petition was filed before the single bench, the senior prosecutor argued. A copy of the statement recorded by police was also submitted before the division bench.
It was also submitted by the senior prosecutor that though police registered an FIR to comply with the single bench’s directive, the order itself goes against the spirit of Supreme Court’s decision in Lalita Kumari vs Govt of UP case of 2013. The court should only have directed for conducting an enquiry and it shouldn’t have ordered for registering an FIR as it prevents independent application of mind by the investigating officer, the senior prosecutor submitted.
(Times of India)