CBI court summons three in death of Amity student 8 years ago

Amity College said it has not received the court order. Abhinav Saha

A special CBI court in Ghaziabad Tuesday summoned three former students of Amity University in connection with the death of Justin John Xavier, whose body was found in the varsity’s swimming pool on September 3, 2009. The court directions came after two closure reports filed by the CBI in the case were rejected.

Jubair Ahmad Khan, the legal counsel for Xavier’s family, said, “Today, the court of Special Judicial Magistrate Chetna Singh, CBI, Ghaziabad, rejected the second closure report filed by the CBI last year and summoned three former students. They have been charged under IPC sections 302 (murder), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 201 (destruction of evidence). The next date of hearing has been fixed for January 15, 2018.” An Amity University spokesperson said they had not received the court order, and “will be in a position to comment only after looking at it”.

Eight years ago, the body of Xavier, an 18-year-old student of Aerospace Engineering at Amity, was found in the institute’s swimming pool. “He was nearly six-feet-tall and the water was not even five-feet-deep. The post-mortem examination report conducted in Noida claimed he died of drowning. He was an award-winning swimmer. An injury on his left knee was noticed. He had sustained that injury a few days before and he had told his father that he will not swim for a few days,” Khan claimed.

Xavier’s father, John, who works in Saudi Arabia, was not satisfied with the police investigation and approached the Kerala High Court, which transferred the case to the CBI on September 17, 2010. In 2014, the special CBI court had issued an order to re-open investigation in the case, after rejecting the first closure report filed by the agency. “Last year, a second closure report in the case was filed by the CBI, which has now been rejected,” Khan said. Meanwhile, a second autopsy conducted by a panel of doctors in Kerala revealed that Xavier had injuries on his head and back, Khan said. “PGIMER Chandigarh has said that in every post-mortem examination, internal and external dissection needs to take place. The injuries on Justin’s body were not post-mortem, as claimed by CBI, but ante-mortem, further medical examination had said,” Khan claimed.

On the alleged role of the three former students, as mentioned in court documents, Khan claimed, “As per their account, they had studied till late that night and two of them had accompanied Justin to the swimming pool at 7 am. The registers showing entry and exit of these students notes the time of their exit at 8 am. And Justin’s signature was done by one of the two other students. Medical documents show that the time of death was 7.35 am and that he had been unconscious for three-four hours before his death.”