More than a year after the death of Malayalam actor Kalabhavan Mani, the Kerala High Court ordered a CBI probe into the case on Wednesday.
According to regional media reports, the court has ordered the CBI to take up the case within a month.
The HC order comes a week after the CBI told the court that it would not take up the investigation on the actor's death, since the agency was already dealing with a number of other cases.
The CBI had taken this stand when the court was hearing a petition filed by Kalabhavan Mani's wife Nimmi and brother RVL Ramakrishnan. Mani’s family has been demanding a CBI investigation ever since his death. Two months after Mani's death, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had also said that the government was in favour of a CBI inquiry.
On the anniversary of Mani’s death this year, his brother RLV Ramakrishnan had even sat on a three-day hunger strike demanding a fuller investigation into the untimely death of his brother.
Mani passed away on March 6 last year, in a suspected case of poisoning. With forensic reports revealing the presence of methyl alcohol and an insecticide in his body, Mani's family had alleged the involvement of some of the actor's friends in his death.
However, despite carrying out narco-analysis of several of Mani's friends, the police were unable to find anything substantial regarding their alleged involvement.
Mani’s family, however, has repeatedly alleged that the police have committed a number of lapses in their probe.
"The investigating team has made lapses in every step of the probe. They were even careless to the extent that they handled my brother's internal organs in an unhygienic manner, while taking it to the national forensic laboratory from Kakkanad laboratory. It has been proven time and again through various lab reports that my brother had been poisoned. The police cannot close the case without finding out who poisoned my brother," Ramakrishnan had told reporters following his three-day hunger strike.