The Thalassery sessions court will deliver its verdict on the bail plea of former Kannur district panchayat president PP Divya, who has been charged with abetting the suicide of Additional District Magistrate (ADM) Naveen Babu, on Friday. The court announced its decision on Tuesday after hearing arguments from Divya’s defence counsel, the prosecution, and the counsel for the family of the deceased ADM.
During Tuesday’s hearing, Ms. Divya’s lawyer, advocate K Viswan, argued that the case lacks clear evidence of intent to abet suicide. He contended that Naveen Babu had allegedly accepted a bribe in the presence of government official Prashanth, who had been suspended on disciplinary grounds for bribery.
Vishwan further contended that Divya was not involved in any illegal activity and emphasised circumstantial evidence suggesting that Prashanth took a gold loan of Rs 1 lakh from a cooperative bank and that both the ADM and Prashanth were present at the same tower location the following day. The defence lawyer requested the court to grant bail to Divya, asserting that the case lacks clear evidence of intent to abet suicide. He further submitted that after Divya’s speech at the farewell meeting, the ADM approached the collector and confessed.
Countering the arguments of Divya’s lawyer, the prosecution asked whether a phone conversation between the ADM and Prashanth could be considered solid proof of bribery. The prosecution counsel pointed out that while there were disciplinary violations, including bribery allegations, against Prashanth, no concrete evidence had been provided to establish a link between the phone call and the bribery claim.
The counsel for the family of the deceased ADM strongly opposed the bail application. He alleged that the police had shielded Divya by failing to arrest her promptly and criticised the police for not recording the statement of the ADM’s wife. Despite receiving two notices, Divya had not cooperated with the investigation, he said.
The counsel rejected Divya’s defence that she had no intention of causing the suicide and argued that the claim of the ADM’s confession to the Collector was false. He noted that the Collector was not someone with whom the ADM had a close relationship, asserting that the purported confession to him was fabricated.
The counsel insisted that the Collector’s statement was part of a conspiracy involving Divya and demanded an examination of the Collector’s phone records to investigate the matter further.