A petition by the father of S.P. Shuhaib, a Youth Congress leader who was murdered, to be added as a party to the transfer of court petition filed by the accused was allowed by the Kerala High Court on Monday. Shuhaib, from Edayannur, and was allegedly murdered by CPI(M) workers in February 2018.

The accused, including Akash Thillenkery, a former DYFI activist, had moved the High Court to transfer the matter from the present Additional Sessions Court, Thalassery. They feared they might not receive justice from the trial court. Earlier, the High Court had ordered a stay on the trial court proceedings until the petition before the High Court was resolved.

Justice G. Girish also allowed the State’s request to link another pending petition filed by the accused challenging the mode of examination conducted by the trial court. In this petition, the High Court had set aside the Thalassery Court’s order to cancel the bail granted to the accused.

The Thalassery court had earlier rejected the request of the accused to record the demeanour of the witness to prove their arguments that the witnesses were tutored by the prosecution.

Following this, the accused moved the High Court against the finding of the trial court. They had also submitted before the trial court that they could not co-operate with the proceedings till the matter was resolved. Subsequently, the trial court had cancelled their bail and ordered that they shall be remanded to custody.