Suraj Lama Missing Case: Kerala High Court Seeks Information On Body Found In Proposed Judicial City Area, Questions Police Surveillance

The Kerala High Court on Monday (December 01) directed the Director General of Police to make available before it all details about the body traced out from a marshy area in Kalamassery, which is suspected to belong to Suraj Lama, who has been missing since October 5 after he arrived in Kochi from Kuwait.

Additionally, the Superintendent of the Medical College Hospital, where the missing Mr. Lama was stated to have been taken to by the Police, was directed to make available to it all reports before the next posting day, on Thursday (December 4).

The Division Bench comprising Justice Devan Ramachandran and Justice M.B. Snehalatha was hearing the habeas corpus plea filed by the missing man's son.

"We need full details now. We need to know how this individual was taken to the hospital. What happened in the hospital? We need a minute-by-minute breakdown. And we are literally hoping and praying that this is not his body. That's all we can do," it orally said.

It then directed:

"This Court requires to be told how the alleged detenue came to be in the Medical College and how he was discharged from there and in what manner. This info is vital manner because it is the specific case of the petitioner that his father, the alleged detenue is cognitively impaired on account of some accident abroad and that it was only because of this that he was in fact sent back to India."

Today, the Bench was informed that a body had been recovered in the marshy areas of HMT, Kalamassery and that presently, the postmortem, scientific tests and DNA profiling is being conducted to confirm whether the body belonged to the alleged detenue/missing man.

"What kind of city surveillance is it? And this is where we are expecting the Judicial City to come. What a wonderful way to start the Judicial City...City and municipality areas cannot have such areas. It has to be under supervision," the Bench orally remarked, pointing out the irony that such an event happened at a place where the Judicial City is proposed to come up.

The Court slammed the police force for leaving such areas in the city unsupervised and for not acting promptly during the 'golden window' for investigating into missing cases. It added to its interim order:

"More concerningly, to say that a body was in a marshy area right within the municipality/corporation area and undetected for over a month or so as now the Government Pleader says that the police now suspects – it is something to be very concerned about. The police certainly have a role to play in this and inform us why such areas are kept unsupervised. We want information on this also on the next posting date."

Noting that the petitioner's counsel, Adv. Parvathi Menon, had been voicing the concern of his client that the authorities had not acted in the manner they should have at the inception, the Court will consider this specific aspect after it gets full information of the alleged detinue.

It had previously directed the constitution of the Special Investigation Team to look into the missing case. The Bench also asked the investigating team to consider another angle, to look into where the missing man's belongings went:

"He was sent back from Kuwait. He must have all his belongings. Whatever those belongings were. Let the police tell us. We want the investigation to continue. Until we decide this matter. The same investigation team will answer all our questions. We don't want our local police to do this. We want the SIT to now go into it and verify. Our radar will the ADGPs and DGPs."

Case No: WP (Crl) No. 1421/2025

Case Title: Santon Lama v. State of Kerala and Ors.