Ramesh Ranganathan, J.

The investigating officials and the prosecutors involved in presenting this case have miserably failed in discharging their duties. They have been instrumental in denying to serve the cause of justice. The misery of the family of the victim has remained unredressed. The perpetrators of a horrendous crime, involving extremely ruthless and savage treatment to the victim, have remained unpunished. A heartless and merciless criminal, who has committed an extremely heinous crime, has gone scot-free. He must be walking around, in some city/town in India, with his head held high. A criminal on the move.

2. Fearless and fearsome. Fearless now, because he could not be administered the punishment he ought to have suffered. And fearsome, on account of his having remained unaffected by the brutal crime committed by him. His actions now know of no barriers. He could be expected to act in an unfathomable savage manner, uncomprehendable to a sane mind.

3. These words, though not ours but are those of the Supreme Court in State of Gujarat v. Kishanbhai, squarely apply to the case on hand.

4. The body of the deceased-Miss. Ayesha Meera, according to the police, was found naked, in the bathroom of a ladies hostel at Vijayawada on 27.12.2007, lying in a pool of blood around her head, with blood oozing from both her nostrils and ears. Her right leg was found tied with a towel to a water tap, and her left leg was found bent. The English letter H in capital, and the words Prema Chirutha in Telugu were found written on her bare chest and right thigh. There was a huge swelling behind the head of the deceased with two injury marks on the left side of her upper and lower lips with corresponding incisions inside. What is even more nauseating is that the murderer is said to have had sexual intercourse with the dead body only to mislead the investigating agency into believing that the victim was first raped and then killed to satiate the lust of the killer.

5. Less than three years after the murder of Miss. Ayesha Meera on 27.12.2007, Sri. Satyam Babu was sentenced to life imprisonment on 29.09.2010 for the offences of rape and murder.

6. He suffered incarceration for more than six and half years thereafter, till he was acquitted and let free by the Division Bench of this Court by its judgment in Criminal Appeal No. 1518 of 2010 dated 31.03.2017. All that Shri Satyam Babu, who was falsely accused of having committed this ghastly and heinous crime, has so far been compensated, for the illegal deprivation of his liberty for the past several years, is Rs. 1.00 Lakh which the Division Bench had directed the State to pay him.

7. The gruesome murder of a young girl, then aged 17 years, shocked people all over the State, and was newspaper headlines for several days. The murderer is still on the loose for the past more than a decade. A botched investigation resulted in an innocent young man being convicted of rape and murder, and made to suffer imprisonment for several years. The agonised parents of the deceased want to know who killed their elder daughter and why?, and thereby seek closure to the trauma they are undergoing ever since her violent death. This, in short, is the case before us.

8. W.P. (PIL) No. 186 of 2017 is filed by three public spirited citizens - a Retired Professor of Osmania University, a Journalist and a social activist, and W.P. No. 25434 of 2017 is filed by the parents of the deceased. In both the Writ Petitions, the relief sought for is to direct the respondents to forthwith initiate re-investigation of the circumstances leading to the murder of Miss.

9. Ayesha Meera by a Special Investigation Team consisting of police officials with a known track record of integrity and impartiality, and for such investigation to be monitored by this Court in order to ensure a fair and impartial investigation to expose and punish the actual offenders responsible for the gruesome murder. The parents of the deceased seek a further dire