Kochi: The Chottanikkara Judicial First class Magistrate Court in Ernakulam has taken a tough stand after the accused failed to appear in a cheating case linked to the Muttil tree-felling case. The court directed the accused to produce any stay order that may be preventing the trial from proceeding. Otherwise, the court warned that the permission granted to the accused to appear through video conference would be cancelled.

The three accused - Roji Augustine, Jose Kutty Augustine, and Anto Augustine – had been directed to appear before the court today to have the charges in the case read out to them. Although all three had been granted permission to appear through video conference, none of them appeared before the court. The court was informed that they had failed to appear because the Kerala High Court is scheduled to consider their petition tomorrow seeking to quash the proceedings in the case.

Following this, the magistrate court adopted a strict stance. It said that if there was a stay order, it should be produced before the court; otherwise, the permission granted to all three accused to appear through video conference would be cancelled. The case will next be considered by the court on September 11.

If the accused receive a favourable order from the High Court tomorrow, they will not have to appear on September 11. However, if they face an adverse order from the High Court, they will naturally have to appear before the magistrate court on September 11.