Madras High Court grants bail to Kodanad Estate heist-cum-murder case accused

The Madras High Court on Tuesday granted bail to K.V. Sayan, the prime accused within the 2017 Kodanad Estate heist-cum-murder case after being knowledgeable that the trial within the case was at a complicated stage and it could have gotten accomplished however for restricted functioning of courts due to COVID-19.

Justice R. Subramanian granted bail to Sayan after making an allowance for that he was beneath steady incarceration since March 1, 2019. Stating that the accused had been in jail for greater than two years at a stretch, the choose didn’t discover it essential to hold him beneath duress any longer.

However when it was introduced to the discover of the courtroom that the accused hailed from Kerala and he would possibly abscond, the choose ordered that he ought to keep in Udhagamandalam till the trial courtroom pronounces a judgement within the 2017 case, by which solely 4 extra defence witnesses have to be examined. The case is being tried earlier than the Nilgiris Principal District and Sessions Court in Udhagamandalam.

Justice Subramanian additional directed Sayan to present two sureties to the tune of ₹50,000 every and ordered that these sureties have to be solvent residents of both Nilgiris or Coimbatore district. He was additionally ordered to report earlier than the trial courtroom each Monday other than attending the common hearings.

Kodanad Estate was owned collectively by former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa and her shut aide V.K. Sasikala. After Jayalalithaa’s dying on December 5, 2016 and Sasikala’s incarceration in a disproportionate property case on February 14, 2017, a heist was reported on the property on the intervening night time of April 23 and 24 of 2017.

An armed gang had reportedly trespassed into the property and decamped with some valuables after murdering a safety guard. Police investigation reportedly revealed that the crime was plotted by Jayalalithaa’s former automobile driver C. Kanagaraj however he acquired killed in a highway accident at Attur in Salem on April 29, 2017. On the identical day, Sayan too had met with a highway accident by which he misplaced his spouse and youngster close to Palakkad in Kerala.

The Tamil Nadu police arrested him on June 6, 2017. However, a judicial Justice of the Peace granted him bail on September 11, 2017 because the prosecution had failed to file a cost sheet inside 90 days of arrest.

After his launch on bail, Sayan together with one other accused Manoj alias Valayar Manoj gave a video interview to a New Delhi primarily based journalist Mathew Samuel in January 2019 alleging that your complete crime occurred on the behest of the then Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and that Kanagaraj had confided it to them.

Immediately after the interview, the trial courtroom cancelled the bail granted to Sayan and Manoj after accepting the prosecution’s stand that they’d tried to affect the trial proceedings by giving false interviews to the media. The High Court too confirmed the cancellation order whereas dismissing their revision petition and therefore they had been re-arrested in 2019.

On August 28, 2020, Justice Subramanian had dismissed bail petitions filed by them after their re-arrest. Then, the aid was denied on the bottom that the interview given by them was geared toward misdirecting the trial and that there was no change of circumstance ever because the High Court had confirmed the cancellation of their bail order.