The Thalassery District Sessions Court on Monday ordered a further probe into the death of late Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Naveen Babu.
Sessions Court Judge Titty George allowed two petitions filed by Manjusha, Naveen Babu’s wife, seeking to retrieve the call data of CPM leader and former district panchayat president P. P. Divya and to examine whether corruption complaints had been filed against Naveen Babu, particularly by T. V. Prashanthan, regarding the alleged demand for a bribe by the late ADM for facilitating a no-objection certificate (NOC) for a petrol pump.
Manjusha approached the court pointing out 13 errors in the charge sheet. The plea argued that the Special Investigation Team (SIT) did not examine the phone call records and chats between P. P. Divya and Prashanthan. It also sought recovery of Divya’s deleted chats and requested that the accused’s phone be subjected to forensic examination.
ADM Naveen Babu was found dead in his official quarters at Pallikkunnu in Kannur on the morning of October 15, 2024. He allegedly died by suicide after facing public humiliation and corruption accusations made by P. P. Divya, then president of the Kannur District Panchayat, at a farewell meeting on October 14.
The Supreme Court in April this year dismissed the petition filed by Manjusha, wife of late Additional District Magistrate Naveen Babu of Kannur, seeking a CBI probe into the death of her husband.
Earlier, a Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on March 3 dismissed the writ appeal filed by Manjusha against a single judge’s order rejecting her plea for a CBI probe into her husband’s death.
A single bench of the Kerala High Court on January 6 had rejected Manjusha’s plea seeking transfer of the probe into her husband’s alleged suicide to the CBI, observing that the accused merely having ties with the ruling political dispensation was not sufficient ground to transfer the investigation to the CBI.