Kochi: In an emotionally charged session on Friday that laid bare a "systemic collapse" within the state's administrative and law enforcement machinery, the Kerala High Court offered an apology to the family of Suraj Lama, whose death has finally been confirmed four months after he went missing.

The 58-year-old Bengaluru resident, who had been missing since his deportation from Kuwait in October 2025, was confirmed dead after a forensic DNA report matched his identity with a decomposed body found in Kalamassery in November.

The Division Bench, comprising Justice Devan Ramachandran and Justice MB Snehalatha, was visibly incensed by the sequence of events that led to the tragedy. Suraj Lama, suffering from severe cognitive impairment, was reported missing by his wife at the Nedumbassery Police Station on October 8.

In what the court termed "the gravest irony", the Thrikkakara Police, unaware of the existing FIR just a few kilometres away, had taken Lama into protective custody on October 10. Instead of verifying his identity through missing person protocols, the police treated him as a "vagrant" and sent him alone in a 108 ambulance to the Ernakulam Medical College, Kalamassery, where he was eventually left unattended and "walked out to a horrific end awaited", the court observed. 

"The man missing was with the police two days later, and nobody knew. This is the biggest irony... the gravest irony we are facing," Justice Devan Ramachandran observed.  "Prima facie, had the protocols with respect to a missing person been fully followed, we have little doubt that Suraj Lama would be alive today," he said. 

The court slammed the police for their compartmentalised functioning in a digital age and rebuked the Medical College for its lack of accountability, questioning how a disoriented patient brought in a police ambulance could simply be allowed to "disappear". When the proceedings touched upon the lack of a police escort for a disoriented Lama because he was "not a VIP", the court delivered a stinging response, asserting that for the judiciary, every citizen is invaluable.

"For us, he is a VIP and the family is VVIP. That is why we are intervening. We will tell people why we are doing so, because every citizen of this country is invaluable," Justice Ramachandran said. 

Acknowledging Lama's family's presence in the court, the court expressed that no words could lessen the family's pain after the system had failed them so profoundly and the court extended an apology on behalf of the state.

"We can only apologise to the family of Suraj Lama. Not that we have done anything wrong, but the system has erred. So we apologise to the family on behalf of the system," Justice Ramchandran said.  The court also directed the Superintendent of the Ernakulam Medical College to release Suraj Lama's remains to his wife and son with "all courtesies and honour". 

To ensure strict accountability for the "inaction" and "systemic failure", the court has summoned the SHO of Nedumbassery Police Station or the missing case investigating officer to appear in person with all relevant case files on Monday at 1.45 pm.