A view of the High Court of Karnataka.

The High Court of Karnataka has ordered the issue of notice to the State government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on a petition seeking a fresh investigation into the 2012 case of rape and murder of 17-year-old Soujanya, who was a student of SDM College, Ujire, near Dharmasthala, in Dakshina Kannada district.

Justice K. Natarajan passed the order recently on the petition filed by Chandappa Gowda, father of the victim.

Transfer to Division Bench

The court also ordered placing the petition before the Chief Justice for posting it before a Division Bench as per the request made by the advocate for the petitioner. The advocate had requested the court to tag the petition along with an appeal, filed by the CBI against the trial court’s verdict of acquitting the sole accused, which is pending consideration before a Division Bench.

While contending that Santosh Rao, who was acquitted by the trial court in June 2023, was not the person who had committed the alleged crime, the petitioner has sought a direction to the CBI to constitute a special investigation team and book three alleged accused persons, who were earlier named before the trial court, and prosecute them as per the law.

The petitioner had claimed that the CBI’s investigation did not attempt to unearth the faults committed by the original investigation officer attached to the Belthangady police station in nabbing the real culprits, and the subsequent investigation and chargesheet filed by the investigation officer of the Criminal Investigation Department of the State government.

Also, the petitioner sought a direction to the State government to initiate action against the investigation officer, who failed to conduct a proper investigation at the initial stage soon after the registration of the case, as per the observations made by the trial court in its order.

The victim’s father in 2018 filed a petition seeking a re-investigation and the High Court in 2021 dismissed this petition. The High Court had also set aside the order of the trial court, which had arraigned three other persons as accused based on an application filed by victim’s father.