[Kallakurichi student death] Madras High Court directs parents to hand over mobile phone of deceased to probe agency

The Madras High Court Tuesday directed the parents of the Kallakurichi schoolgirl, who had died by suicide, to hand over the mobile phone of the deceased girl to the Tamil Nadu Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) which is probing the matter [Ramalingam v The Director General of Police and ors.].Single-judge Justice V Sivagnanam passed the order after the State Public Prosecutor Hasan Mohammed Jinnah told the Court while the CB-CID is carrying on its probe with utmost sincerity, the parents of the deceased girl were "not cooperating" with the investigating agency. He said that the petitioners were yet to handover the mobile phone that had belonged to the deceased, despite the probe agency having served three summons asking them to do so.The Court then directed the petitioners to hand over the mobile phone to the CB-CID and directed the prosecution to file a report detailing the status of the probe.The Court then adjourned the matter for further hearing to October 10..The Court was hearing a petition filed by the parents of the Kallakurichi schoolgirl, whose death on July 13, had led to large scale violence and stone-pelting and in and around the school building..Her parents had registered a complaint with the police alleging foul play and claiming that their daughter had likely been raped before her death.Following the complaint, five persons, including two teachers, the school principal, the school management correspondent and the school secretary were arrested by the police.On August 30, the High Court had granted the accused persons bail saying that the postmortem report in the case showed that it was a case of suicide. It had said at the time that it was "unfortunate" thus, that teachers had been booked in the case merely for asking the student to study well.The High Court had transferred the probe to the CB-CID on July 18 this year.During the hearing on Tuesday, asked why it should not dispose of the petition since the High Court had already granted the petitioners' prayer for transferring the investigation into the death to the Crime Branch of the Tamil Nadu Crime Investigation Department (CB-CID) and nothing remained in the plea. The counsel for the petitioners, however, urged the High Court to keep the matter pending, and to "monitor the investigation" saying that the deceased's parents believed that it was a "clear case of cold-blooded murder..Advocate Sankarasubbu appeared for the petitioner's parents.Hassan Mohammed Jinnah, State Public Prosecutor appeared for the prosecution..[Kallakuruchi student death] Take action against those conducting parallel investigation on social media: Madras High Court to SIT