Kochi, Thursday, January 15, 2009: Sister Abhaya murder probe took a deep plunge today when Kerala High Court Justice R Basant backed off from the case and decided to handover the case to division bench.

The surprise move came from Justice Basant himself who was in charge of monitoring the Sister Abhaya investigations said the judicial tug of war has deeply saddened him and his decision to handover the case to Division bench would avoid unnecessary legal tangle and uphold the prestige of judiciary.

It is reported that the comments made by Justice K Hema that only the Supreme Court had the final say on an order granting bail to the accused and that no other judge of the High Court was entitled to say anything on it paved way for the new development.

The remarks by Justice Hema come a few days after Justice R Basant, who is the monitoring judge in the case, sought to interpret the bail order in a manner consistent with the probe. Justice Hema, it is felt, was giving vent to her anguish over Justice Basant interpreting her order.

Ignoring the plea by CBI, the investigating agency, Justice Hema had granted bail to the three accused in the case - sister Sephy and priests Thomas Kottur and Jose Puthrikayil - early last week. The order drew much criticism as the court had sought to turn the tables on the CBI and even reignited the suicide theory. Experts differed on whether the court while granting bail should have gone into the finer aspects of the case when the trial had not even commenced. Even the statements recorded by some witnesses before a magistrate were discussed in the bail order.

Though the CBI had moved the Chief Justice requesting him to transfer the bail application out of Justice Hema’s court, this was disallowed.

Justice Hema also expressed her displeasure with the investigating team. This was in contradiction with an order by Justice Basant who had expressed the High Court’s satisfaction.

The bail order had the effect of bringing the probe, which after 16 years had finally picked up pace, to a standstill. Justice Basant while considering the status of the probe observed that the CBI should not take the excuse of the bail order to stop the investigation and that it should go ahead.