SFI leader Abhimanyu murder case: HC orders completion of trial within four months

Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Monday directed the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court to complete the trial and pronounce its verdict in the 2018 murder case of SFI leader M Abhimanyu within four months.

Justice Kauser Edappagath issued the direction while considering a petition filed by Abhimanyu’s mother, Bhoopathy, who approached the HC after the trial failed to conclude within the timeframe fixed earlier. The court ruled that the proceedings must be completed within four months. The case is currently at the stage of witness examination.

In January 2025, the HC had directed the trial court to conclude the proceedings within nine months after considering Bhoopathy’s earlier plea seeking an expeditious trial. However, the deadline expired before the trial could be completed, following which the trial court sought additional time.

Advocate Devika KR, Bhoopathy’s lawyer, said the earlier deadline had lapsed, prompting the family to move the HC once again.

“The time already granted had expired. In the initial order, the direction was to complete the trial within nine months. As that time had lapsed, we filed an additional petition about two months ago requesting a direction to finish the matter as expeditiously as possible,” Devika told Onmanorama.

She said the trial judge had also sought more time from the HC owing to procedural stages in the case and recent judicial transfers.

“Considering both the judge’s request and our petition, the HC directed that the trial be wrapped up within four months,” she added.

The proceedings in the Abhimanyu case were also delayed as the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court was simultaneously hearing the actor sexual assault case. By the time that trial concluded, the judge had also been transferred, further slowing the proceedings. It was against this backdrop that Bhoopathy once again approached the High Court.

The HC’s direction comes weeks after the trial court, presided over by Judge KK Balakrishnan, formally framed charges against the first 16 accused on July 6. All 16 accused appeared before the court and pleaded not guilty to charges including murder, attempt to murder and unlawful assembly.

The court also dismissed a plea filed by the first accused, Mohammed, seeking the return of the chargesheet, besides rejecting discharge petitions filed by six other accused.

Although police filed the chargesheet on September 26, 2018, the trial has been repeatedly delayed due to legal and procedural hurdles.

One of the biggest setbacks came when 11 crucial prosecution records, including the original chargesheet, post-mortem report, wound certificates and witness statements, went missing from the trial court’s secure custody, triggering widespread controversy. The prosecution later reconstructed the missing records using certified copies with the HC's permission and resubmitted them before the trial court.

The prosecution has cited 125 witnesses in the case, including 25 former students of Maharaja’s College. Many of them completed their studies and moved to different parts of the country or abroad, making it difficult to serve summonses and secure their presence before the court. A Special Branch report had also flagged alleged attempts by the defence to influence some witnesses.

In another significant development, the HC on July 14 dismissed an appeal filed by five accused seeking to stay the trial until police completed the investigation against accused numbers 17 to 26, who are alleged to have harboured the main assailants. The court held that the pending investigation against the alleged harbourers would not prejudice the trial of the principal accused.

Abhimanyu, a native of Vattavada in Idukki district, was a second-year B.Sc. Chemistry student at Maharaja's College, Kochi, and the unit secretary of the Students’ Federation of India (SFI).

He was fatally stabbed inside the college campus on July 2, 2018. The attack followed a dispute over welcome graffiti put up for incoming students between SFI members and activists of the Campus Front of India (CFI), the student wing of the now-banned Popular Front of India (PFI), and the Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). Two other SFI activists, Arjun and Vineeth, were also seriously injured in what investigators described as a pre-planned armed assault.