The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday, September 29, quashed the chargesheet against Saravanan and Krishnakumari, the parents of Surjith, the main accused in the murder of 27-year-old IT employee C Kavin Selvaganesh in Tirunelveli in July 2025. The court, however, dismissed a petition filed by Surjith’s relative Jayapal, who had sought to quash the chargesheet against him.
The order was passed by Justice R Vijayakumar of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.
Kavin, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste community and hailed from Arumugamangalam in Thoothukudi district, was hacked to death in Tirunelveli’s KTC Nagar on July 27, 2025. Surjith, the younger brother of Kavin’s partner S Subhashini, was arrested in connection with the murder.
Kavin’s relationship with Subhashini was opposed by her family because of the caste difference. Kavin belonged to the Devendra Kula Vellalar community, which is a Scheduled Caste in Tamil Nadu, while Subhashini’s family is from the Maravar sub-caste of the Thevar community.
The case was transferred to the CB-CID after it emerged that Surjith’s parents, Saravanan and Krishnakumari, were police officers and were named as accused. Both are Sub-Inspectors in the Tamil Nadu Special Police Force and were suspended from service following the murder.
The chargesheet filed by the CB-CID before the II Additional District Court for SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act cases in Tirunelveli alleged that Saravanan and Krishnakumari had known about their daughter’s relationship with Kavin since 2016-17. Saravanan had allegedly cautioned his daughter and spoken to Kavin over the phone during 2018-19, while Krishnakumari had contacted Kavin’s mother and warned her about the relationship.
The prosecution alleged that after Kavin was murdered on July 27, 2025, Surjith informed his father about the murder, who in turn informed Krishnakumari. The chargesheet alleged that Saravanan and Krishnakumari later met Surjith near a college and instructed him to destroy his clothes and mobile phone and remove the number plate from the two-wheeler used in the crime. Saravanan was also accused of providing false information to the police.
However, the High Court found that there was no direct evidence to establish the alleged meeting between the parents and Surjith.
Justice Vijayakumar observed that there was no eyewitness to the alleged meeting and no CCTV footage, photograph, video recording, or statement from an independent witness to establish it. There was also no recording, transcript, message, or other electronic material showing what had transpired between them.
“The meeting is sought to be established solely on the circumstance that the mobile phones attributed to Surjith, Saravanan, and Krishnakumari were connected to the same mobile tower during the relevant period,” the judge observed.
The court also relied on a Supreme Court judgement concerning the evidentiary value of mobile tower information. The judge noted that mobile tower data corresponds only to the operational range of a tower and cannot establish the exact location of a mobile phone. Therefore, the court held that it would be unsafe to rely solely on such material to establish that an accused was present at a particular place.
The court also considered the prosecution’s own account of Saravanan’s actions after the murder.
The judge observed: “It is the prosecution’s own case, as recorded in the final report, that Saravanan proceeded to the scene of occurrence within 16 minutes of receiving information from Surjith and spoke to the police there.”
The court noted that Saravanan had allegedly informed a head constable that his own son had committed the murder. Justice Vijayakumar said this contradicted the allegation that Saravanan intended to shield his son.
“Where the prosecution’s own material shows that the person accused of screening had, within minutes, gone to the police and named the offender as his own son, the very intention which forms the essential ingredient of the offences stands negatived by the prosecution’s own narrative. The two versions cannot co-exist,” the judge held.
The court also examined the allegations under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act against Saravanan and Krishnakumari.
The court found that the alleged telephone conversations did not establish the necessary ingredients of a caste-based offence. The judge noted that caste reference, insult, or abuse were absent and the alleged offence did not take place in public view. The telephone communications relied upon by the prosecution had also taken place several years before the murder.
The court observed there was no allegation that Saravanan and Krishnakumari were involved in the murder, present at the crime scene, or had prior knowledge of a conspiracy. The court also found that the prosecution documents were contrary to some of the allegations made against them.
The High Court therefore quashed the chargesheet against Saravanan and Krishnakumari, but declined to grant similar relief to Jayapal, a relative of Surjith.
The prosecution alleged that Jayapal had previously met Kavin and warned him of serious consequences if he did not end his relationship with Subhashini. It was also alleged that Jayapal had spoken to Kavin over the phone for more than 24 minutes on the day of the murder.
The prosecution further alleged that after Kavin’s murder, Surjith’s clothes, mobile phone, and the number plate of the two-wheeler were destroyed or removed at a quarry belonging to Jayapal. The articles were subsequently recovered from the quarry.
The court held that these circumstances provided prima facie grounds to proceed against Jayapal. Whether he had planned or participated in a conspiracy with Surjith was therefore a matter for trial and could not be decided at the stage of a petition seeking to quash the chargesheet.
The CB-CID had filed an 800-page chargesheet containing CCTV footage, forensic evidence, and statements from 83 witnesses, including Kavin’s partner and parents. The chargesheet was filed before the Special Court for cases under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in Tirunelveli.
The murder had led to demands from Kavin’s family for the arrest of Surjith’s parents. Kavin’s mother Tamilselvi, who said she witnessed the murder, had alleged that Surjith used casteist slurs during the attack and told her that his parents would be at peace only after Kavin’s death.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, September 29, VCK president Thol Thirumavalavan urged the Tamil Nadu government to appeal against the High Court’s decision to quash the chargesheet against Saravanan and Krishnakumari. He said the decision to quash the chargesheet before the commencement of the trial would set a “wrong precedent”.