The Nedumangadu Judicial First Class Magistrate Court- I on Saturday found MLA and former Transport Minister Antony Raju guilty of tampering with evidence in a 1990 case involving an Australian national, Andrew Salvatore Cervelli, who was arrested at the Thiruvananthapuram airport for possession of 61.6 grams of charas.

JFMC-1 Judge Rubi Ismail found the first accused, K S Jose, who was the court clerk and the second accused, Antony Raju, guilty of criminal conspiracy, causing disappearance of evidence, fabricating false evidence, criminal breach of trust, joint liability in a crime committed with common intention and forgery. The court did not accept the prosecution's charges of cheating and forgery with the aim of cheating.

Assistant Public Prosecutor A Manmohan has filed a petition to invoke section 325 of CrPC, which deals with the procedure to forward the accused to the Chief Judicial Magistrate, after submitting the proceedings and recording the opinion, if the Magistrate considers that the accused ought to receive a punishment more severe than that which the lower court is empowered to inflict. If the Magistrate invokes this section, the verdict will be pronounced by the Thiruvananthapuram Chief Judicial Magistrate court.

"The sections slapped against both the accused can invite punishment of 10 years in jail or life imprisonment. The JFMC-1 can pronounce a verdict only for a term upto 3 years. That's why we have requested the court to transfer the case for a severe verdict from the higher court," Manmohan told Onmanorama.

Defence counsel Advocate Sasthamangalam Ajith said that the prosecution has filed the petition in haste. "If the Magistrate feels that the accused needs more than 3 years of punishment, it will be forwarded to the higher court. The petition is based on an assumption that the Magistrate will sentence the accused to 3 years imprisonment," said Ajith.

The case
Antony Raju, then a junior lawyer, represented the accused Cervelli. While a sessions court initially convicted Cervelli and sentenced him to ten years of imprisonment, the Kerala High Court acquitted him in 1991.

The acquittal was primarily based on the defence argument that the underwear produced as evidence was too small to fit the accused. During the appeal, the court observed a physical demonstration where the garment failed to fit Cervelli, leading the bench to note a strong suspicion of evidence tampering.

The subsequent investigation revealed that Antony Raju had allegedly conspired with a court clerk named K Jose to obtain the underwear from the court's material objects room. It was alleged that Raju took the garment, had it re-stitched to a smaller size, and returned it to the court four months later to ensure it would not fit his client during the High Court hearing.

The case gained further momentum after Interpol informed Indian authorities that Cervelli had confessed to the tampering while serving a sentence in an Australian prison for another crime. An FIR was registered in 1994, and a chargesheet was filed in 2014, accusing Raju of criminal conspiracy, cheating, and destruction of evidence.

Legal course
The legal proceedings faced several delays and technical challenges over three decades. In March 2023, the Kerala High Court quashed the case against Raju on the technical ground that the police lacked the authority to investigate evidence tampering that occurred within court custody, suggesting instead that the court itself should have initiated the complaint. However, in November 2024, the Supreme Court of India overturned this decision and restored the trial, ruling that the procedural bar did not apply and emphasising that interference with judicial processes strikes at the foundation of justice. The apex court directed that the trial be completed within one year.