Madras High Court dismisses plea to quiz Annamalai in Anna University sexual assault case

The Madras High Court, on Tuesday (July 1, 2025) dismissed a writ petition which sought a direction to the Director General of Police (DGP) and the Inspector of Kotturpuram police station in Chennai to conduct an inquiry regarding Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) former State president K. Annamalai’s claim that he was in possession of certain records related to the Anna University sexual assault case.

Justice P. Velmurugan refused to issue any such direction. He advised the petitioner M.L. Ravi not to give importance to statements made by politicians especially when the investigation into the sexual assault case had been completed and the trial court too had passed a judgement on June 2, convicting the sole accused and sentencing him to life imprisonment without any remission for 30 years.

In his affidavit, the petitioner had stated that a woman engineering student was subjected to sexual abuse at the Anna University campus in Chennai by a biriyani seller D. Gnanasekar on December 23, 2024. According to the victim, the aggressor had intervened when she was spending time with her boyfriend and threatened that he would disclose the incident to the top brass of the college if she does not budge to his sexual desire.

The victim had also claimed the aggressor had spoken on phone to someone by referring to the person on the other end as ‘sir’ before sexually assaulting her. Most Opposition political parties in the State wanted to know ‘Who was that sir?’ However, the police, continued to maintain that Gnanasekar had operated alone and that he had only pretended to talk to someone while keeping his phone on flight mode.

On the other hand, Mr. Annamalai, made a persistent claim all through that he was in possession of Gnanasekar’s call records and that there was more to the crime than what met the eye. Yet, the police did not choose to inquire him regarding the reported materials in his possession, the petitioner complained.