SC dismisses bail plea of Tamil Nadu cops in custodial death case

The two-judge bech of justices Vineet Saran and Dinesh Maheshwari refused to grant bail to P Raghu Ganesh and S Sridhar, according to an NDTV report.

Justice Vineet Saran said the bail could not be given at this stage.

On June 19 last year, Jayaraj and Bennicks, were taken into custody on allegations that they had kept their mobile phone shop open beyond the permissible hours amid the lockdown.

The incident sparked mass outrage and the Tamil Nadu government handed over the investigation into the custodial death case to the CBI.

The CBI filed a charge sheet naming nine police personnel. The central investigative agency said that the men were tortured for over six hours by policemen who "wanted to teach them a lesson" in how to behave with cops, according to the NDTV report.

"Our investigation revealed that the father-son duo was arrested on the evening of June 19 and was allegedly tortured at the Sathankulam police station by the accused in the evening as well as in the intervening night, consequent to which both of them succumbed to the injuries and died in the intervening night of June 22 and June 23," the agency said, the report stated.

"Whenever there used to be a lull, accused inspector Sridhar used to prod the staff by asking about reasons for silence and thereby instigating them further to start fresh rounds of beating," the charge sheet read.