In a major development in the Sivaganga custodial death case, the Madras High Court on Tuesday ordered the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the probe into the death of 29-year-old temple security guard B Ajith Kumar, rejecting the Tamil Nadu government’s plea to allow state police to continue the investigation.
A division bench of Justices S.M. Subramaniam and A.D. Maria Clete of the Madurai bench directed the CBI to complete its investigation and file a report by August 20, 2025. The court also instructed the Union Ministry of Home Affairs to assign a CBI officer to head the investigation within a week and ordered full cooperation from the state police.
The court’s decision comes amid widespread public outcry and multiple public interest litigations filed by individuals and the NGO People’s Watch, following Kumar’s death in police custody on June 29. Kumar, a security guard at the Madapuram Bhadrakali Amman temple, had been taken into custody on June 27 after a theft complaint was filed by a woman who alleged her gold jewellery went missing after she handed her car keys to Kumar for parking.
Last week, the bench had strongly criticised the state police after reviewing the post-mortem report, observing that the number and severity of injuries on Kumar’s body indicated brutal custodial torture. “Even an ordinary murderer would not have caused these many injuries to a person,” the bench had remarked.
On Tuesday, the state’s Additional Advocate General, Ajmal Khan, argued against handing the case to the CBI, citing the agency’s delays in high-profile cases such as the 2018 Thoothukudi Sterlite protest deaths and the 2020 custodial killings in Sattankulam. Khan urged the court to instead allow a state-level special investigation team (SIT) to probe the matter.
However, the court rejected the plea, emphasizing that “once suspicion is raised regarding the conduct of the state’s own police personnel, the investigation must be transferred to an independent central agency.” The judges underscored that even an SIT would include state officers, thus failing to ensure impartiality.
“Any SIT that we constitute will also have officers of the state. Allegations of an unfair probe can be made again. Therefore, let the investigations go to a central agency,” the court said, noting that the state had previously agreed to a CBI probe.
The bench also took on record a judicial report submitted by the district judge and directed that a copy be provided to the CBI. It recorded the state’s submissions on granting a job to Kumar’s brother and allotting land to the victim’s family as compensation.
The next hearing in the case is expected after the CBI submits its report by the court-mandated deadline.
