(Prayer: Criminal Original Petition filed under Section 528 of BNSS, 2023, praying this Court, to call for the entire records pertaining to the impugned charge sheet filed in SC.No.120 of 2025 on the file of the Additional District Court No.II for PCR Act Cases, Tirunelveli and quash the same as illegal.)

1. The present petition has been preferred by the fourth accused, K.Jayapal, in S.C.No.120 of 2025 on the file of the II Additional District Court (PCR Act Cases), Tirunelveli, seeking to quash the charge sheet by which he stands charged with offences under Sections 103(1) read with 61(2) (a), 238(a) and 249(a) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, and Sections 3(1)(r), 3(1)(s) and 3(2)(v) of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, as amended by the Amendment Act, 2015 (hereinafter referred to as "the SC/ST Act").

(A). Factual Matrix:

2. According to the charge sheet, the petitioner is the cousin of the first accused, who is alleged to have murdered the deceased on account of his love affair with the sister of A1. The family of the petitioner belongs to the Backward Class community, whereas the deceased belonged to the Scheduled Caste community, and the relationship so formed was objected to by the petitioner. The murder is said to have been committed by A1 at about 2.19 p.m. on 27.07.2025. Immediately thereafter, A1 telephoned his father, arrayed as A2, who passed on the information to his wife, arrayed as A3; A2 and A3, in turn, contacted the petitioner and requested him to render assistance to A1.

3. It is further alleged that although A2 to A4 came to know of the offence committed by A1, they withheld that information from the police and instead assisted A1 in escaping and in destroying the evidence. The confessions recorded from A1 and A2 led to the recovery of a DVR, a number plate and an oil drum from a quarry owned by the petitioner. The prosecution asserts that the petitioner met the deceased on 16.01.2025 and warned him to abandon the affair, failing which he would come to grief, and that he thereafter spoke to the deceased over the telephone on 25.01.2025 at about 5.42 p.m. and again at about 7.05 p.m., the calls extending to 1,442 seconds. After the murder, A1 is stated to have proceeded to the said quarry, where he destroyed his clothes, damaged the cell phone, removed the number plate of the two-wheeler and made good his escape. It is on this basis that the petitioner has been charged with the offences set out above.

(B). Submissions of the counsel appearing on either side:

4. The learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that even if the prosecution version is accepted in its entirety, the charge sheet discloses no material to show that the petitioner had any prior knowledge of the design of A1 or that he participated in the planning or execution of the attack, the occurrence being attributable solely to A1. The materials collected indicate that A1 proceeded to the quarry of his own volition and that the petitioner learnt of the incident only upon his arrival. There is no call, message or independent witness to establish that the petitioner directed A1 to come to the quarry, and admittedly there was no telephonic contact between them between 21.07.2025 and 27.07.2025, so that no continuous chain of communication exists.

5. Turning to the meeting of 16.01.2025 and the two conversations of 25.01.2025, it was urged that no material whatsoever has been placed on record in support of either allegation. Even assuming that the petitioner met or spoke to the deceased, those events preceded the occurrence by nearly six months and bear no connection with it, and there is nothing to demonstrate continuity of communication or a common plan between A1 and the petitioner during the intervening period from January 2025 to July 2025. The prosecution has thus sought to link unrelated events without placing on record any intermediate or sequential circumstance.

6. While conceding that a criminal conspiracy may be established through circumstantial evidence, the learned counsel maintained that the prosecution must at the least place before the Court circumstances forming a complete and unbroken chain indicative of an agreement or meeting of minds between the accused.

7. The mere presence of A1 at the quarry after the occurrence, it was contended, cannot furnish a foundation for inferring an antecedent conspiracy, and the allegation in that behalf rests entirely upon assumption, drawing together events separated by an interval of nearly six months.

8. It was next pointed out that the charge sheet contains no allegation that the petitioner instructed A1 to burn or destroy the clothes worn by him, to remove or change the number plate, to damage the mobile phone or to make away with any other material evidence, nor that he participated in, directed or facilitated any act intended to cause the disappearance of evidence. The provision of fresh clothing, standing alone, throws no light upon the existence of such an intention.

9. Reliance was placed upon the statement under Section 180 of the BNSS, 2023, of LW41, an employee of the quarry, to submit that the only direction issued by the petitioner was that A1 be given water, be made to wait and be informed that the petitioner was on his way. The petitioner did not ask the quarry manager to conceal A1 or to destroy any evidence, and the manager had telephoned the petitioner on his own accord.

10. It was further submitted that upon reaching the quarry the petitioner brought A1 out of the premises, and A1 was arrested by the police at about 4.30 p.m. on the very same day. There is no allegation that the petitioner tampered with, deleted, altered, concealed or destroyed the CCTV footage; on the contrary, the material objects remained intact within the quarry and were subsequently seized, which itself demonstrates that he took no step towards causing the disappearance of evidence.

11. As regards harbouring, it was contended that nothing on record establishes prior knowledge of the occurrence or any advance arrangement for A1 to take shelter at the quarry, the petitioner having been 25 km away from the scene. Relying upon the Common Analysis Report filed by the first respondent, it was submitted that the petitioner turned off the highway towards the quarry solely to collect A1 and returned to the highway within a short while. There is no allegation that he shifted A1 to any other hiding place or made arrangements to keep him beyond the reach of the police; A1 was arrested by the local police immediately upon being brought out. The charge of harbouring is therefore not made out.

12. Finally, it was urged that Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act are attracted only where the victim is abused by caste name within public view, and that the mere circumstance that the deceased belonged to a Scheduled Caste cannot suffice, particularly in the absence of any such allegation against the petitioner. Even assuming that he met or telephoned the deceased, the charge sheet nowhere alleges that he abused him by caste name at the relevant point of time. Nor can Section 3(2)(v) be invoked, no specific overt act in the commission of the principal offence having been attributed to him; knowledge of the caste identity of the deceased is by itself insufficient in the absence of material showing that the petitioner committed or participated in an underlying offence punishable with imprisonment for ten years or more. On these grounds, quashing of the charge sheet as against the fourth accused was prayed for.

13. Per contra, the learned counsel appearing for the second respondent submitted that the meeting of 16.01.2025 and the telephonic conversation of 25.01.2025 are not in dispute, and that these circumstances are relied upon to establish that the petitioner was aware of the caste of the deceased and had warned him against continuing the relationship, which in turn indicates his participation in the conspiracy with A1 in the commission of the murder.

14. It was further submitted on behalf of the second respondent that A1 reached the quarry run by the petitioner and there changed his dress, the bloodstained clothes being burnt in a drum, the number plate of the twowheeler being changed, whereafter he left the place, and that all of this was done at the instance of the petitioner and upon his premises. In these circumstances, no legal ground has been made out for quashing the charge sheet.

15. The learned State Public Prosecutor appearing for the first respondent, relying extensively upon the counter affidavit, submitted that the DVR, the number plate and the oil drum were seized from the quarry owned by the petitioner, where the clothes of the accused were destroyed, and that A2 and A3 had spoken to the petitioner over the telephone with a view to destroying the evidence, concealing the number plate of the two-wheeler and damaging the cell phone. He also placed reliance upon the statements under Section 180 of the BNSS, 2023, of LW41 to LW45, witnesses connected with the quarry, whose accounts, according to him, categorically disclose the role of the petitioner in the conspiracy and in harbouring the accused. He accordingly prayed for dismissal of the petition.

16. Heard the learned counsel appearing on either side and perused the material records.

(C). Discussion:

17. As disclosed by the charge sheet, the role attributed to the petitioner, who is the cousin of A1, is that he objected to the relationship between the deceased and his cousin sister in January 2025, met the deceased on 16.01.2025 and warned him to abandon it, and thereafter held two telephonic conversations with him on 25.01.2025 extending to more than twenty-four minutes. On 27.07.2025 at about 4.00 p.m. he met A1 and directed his employee, LW42, to supply fresh clothing. It was within the same quarry that the number plate of the two-wheeler was removed, the bloodstained clothes were burnt and A1 changed his attire.

18. The telephonic conversations are pressed into service by the prosecution only as circumstantial evidence of contact, time, sequence and proximity, considerations which assume particular significance in a case of conspiracy. The prosecution has additionally relied upon the statements of LW26, LW34 and LW40 with regard to the meeting between the petitioner and the deceased and the sequence of events. So far as the destruction of the bloodstained clothes, the removal and concealment of the number plate and the damaging of the cell phone at the quarry are concerned, the instructions attributed to the petitioner are spoken to by LW41 to LW45, and the recoveries of the DVR, the number plate and the oil drum were likewise effected from his quarry.

19. It is necessary at this juncture to notice the distinction between the case against the petitioner and the cases against A2 and A3, whose petitions in Crl.O.P.(MD)Nos.995 and 11824 of 2026 have been allowed by this Court by separate orders of even date. The allegation that A2 and A3 instructed A1 to destroy the evidence rested solely upon a meeting inferred from cell tower location data, with no witness speaking to what, if anything, was said. Call detail records, as held by the Hon'ble Supreme Court in Rahil and another Vs. State (Government of NCT of Delhi), 2025 SCC Online SC 1481, indicate only an approximate area and disclose only the fact of a communication and not its content. Insofar as the prosecution contends that A2 and A3 spoke to the petitioner over the telephone with a view to destroying the evidence, that contention suffers from the same infirmity, and this Court does not proceed upon it. The case against the petitioner, however, does not rest on call records or on inference. The destruction of the clothes, the removal of the number plate and the damaging of the cell phone are alleged to have taken place on premises owned and run by the petitioner; the instructions attributed to him are spoken to by persons who were present there, namely LW41 to LW45; and the material objects were recovered from those very premises. The telephonic conversations of January 2025 are relied upon only as corroborative circumstances, which is the limited purpose for which such material may be used.

20. Whether the petitioner had an antecedent plan or was party to a conspiracy in the murder committed by A1 is a question that must abide the trial and cannot be gone into at the stage of a quash petition. The contention that the CCTV footage is neither continuous nor unbroken is governed by Sections 61 and 63 of the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, 2023, and must be raised when the material is marked and proved during trial. The DVR seized forms part of the record, and its evidentiary value is not a matter that can be adjudged in these proceedings. Likewise, the reliance placed by the petitioner upon the statement of LW41, when the prosecution relies upon the statements of LW42 to LW45 as well, calls for an appreciation of evidence which is impermissible at this stage.

21. It is not the case of the petitioner that he was unaware of the caste of the deceased. The prosecution relies upon the physical meeting of 16.01.2025, spoken to by LW26, LW34 and LW40, and the telephonic conversations of 25.01.2025. Though the petitioner disputes the said material, whether the meeting and the conversations took place, and whether what passed between them amounted to a threat or to mere advice, are matters for trial. The plea that the petitioner has been roped in merely because he is a relative of A1 cannot be countenanced, having regard to the material relating to January 2025, the shelter afforded immediately after the occurrence, the instructions issued to his employee and the physical recoveries made from his premises. The charges levelled against him can hardly be described as omnibus or as resting upon relationship alone.

22. This Court is conscious that, in the petitions filed by A2 and A3, the charges under Sections 3(1)(r) and 3(1)(s) of the SC/ST Act were held not to be made out, since the only communications relied upon there were private telephonic conversations that took place some six to nine years before the occurrence, and, in the case of A3, the very statement relied upon to establish the alleged warning did not disclose any threat. The position of the petitioner is different. The allegation against him is of a face-to-face meeting with the deceased on 16.01.2025, spoken to by other witnesses, at which he is said to have warned the deceased that he would come to grief if he did not abandon the relationship, followed by telephonic conversations extending to more than twenty-four minutes, all within about six months before the occurrence. Whether that meeting took place in a place within public view, and whether the words spoken amounted to intentional insult or intimidation of the deceased as a member of a Scheduled Caste, are questions of fact that can be answered only on evidence. Similarly, since the petitioner stands charged with criminal conspiracy under Section 61(2)(a) read with Section 103(1) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, for which there is prima facie material as noticed above, the foundational requirement for invoking Section 3(2)(v) of the SC/ST Act cannot be said to be absent at this stage.

23. In such view of the matter, this Court is of the considered opinion that there is prima facie material on record warranting that the petitioner be put on trial, and that the contentions urged in the present petition may well be advanced by him before the trial Court. The trial Court is directed to dispose of the case on merits and in accordance with law, uninfluenced by any of the observations made herein.

(D). Conclusion:

24. In the light of the foregoing deliberations, the petition is devoid of merit. This Criminal Original Petition is accordingly dismissed. Consequently, the connected miscellaneous petition is closed.