Death sentence upheld

Published : Sep 24, 2010 00:00 IST

The accused (from left), C. Muniappan, Nedunchezhiyan and Ravindran.-The accused (from left), C. Muniappan, Nedunchezhiyan and Ravindran.

The accused (from left), C. Muniappan, Nedunchezhiyan and Ravindran.-The accused (from left), C. Muniappan, Nedunchezhiyan and Ravindran.

ON August 30, the Supreme Court confirmed the death sentences awarded by the Madras High Court to three All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) functionaries, Nedunchezhiyan, Ravindran and C. Muniappan, in the Dharmapuri bus burning case. The accused had set fire to a bus and burnt alive three students Kokilavani, Hemalatha and Gayathri of Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, at Ilakkiyampatti village near Dharmapuri on February 2, 2000. The men torched the bus to protest against the sentence awarded to party general secretary and former Chief Minister Jayalalithaa by Special Judge V. Radhakrishnan in Chennai in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case earlier in the day ( Frontline, March 3, 2000, and March 9, 2007).

A Supreme Court Bench, comprising Justices G.S. Singhvi and B.S. Chauhan, said: The manner of the commission of the offence is extremely brutal, diabolical, grotesque and cruel. It is shocking to the collective conscience of the society. We do not see any cogent reason to interfere with the punishment of death sentence awarded to the three accused by the lower courts. The judges had harsh words for the police inaction: Innocent girls trapped in a burning bus were shouting for help. There were a large number of people, including shopkeepers, mediapersons and police personnel, and none of them considered it proper to help in their rescue. Even if the common man fails to respond to the call of his conscience, the police should not have remained inactive.

The three girls and their classmates were returning to Coimbatore from an educational tour in two buses. The AIADMK cadre went on the rampage after the Special Judge convicted and sentenced Jayalalithaa to one year's imprisonment for her role in granting exemption from building and hill area development rules to Pleasant Stay Hotel, Kodaikanal, in 1994.

The students' buses stopped at a roadblock set up by the AIADMK men at Ilakkiyampatti. The accused went on Muniappan's motorcycle to buy kerosene and soon reached the stranded bus. Nedunchezhiyan and Ravindran opened the front door of the bus and poured kerosene inside, and one of them threw in a lighted match. Kokilavani, Hemalatha and Gayathri, who were helping the other students retrieve their luggage, were trapped in the inferno.

When the trial in the case was about to begin in 2001, the AIADMK, which had returned to power, tried to scupper it. All the witnesses turned hostile. However, N.P. Veerasamy, father of Kokilavani, fought on. He sought the transfer of the trial, which was dragging on in a court in Krishnagiri, to Coimbatore. Justice V. Kanagaraj of the Madras High Court ordered fresh trial in Salem.

On February 16, 2007, D. Krishna Raja, First Additional District and Sessions Judge, Salem, awarded death sentences to the three accused under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code. Twenty-five other accused were given imprisonment ranging from three months to seven years and ordered to pay a fine of Rs.13,000 under different Sections of the IPC and the Tamil Nadu Public Property (Prevention of Destruction) Act, 1992.

On December 6, 2007, the High Court confirmed the death sentences awarded by the lower court, describing the offence as ghastly, diabolical and gruesome. A Division Bench comprising Justices D. Murugesan and V. Periya Karuppiah was convinced that this was among the rarest of rare cases. The intention of the accused to set the bus on fire, along with the inmates, was obvious to murder all the inmates and teach a lesson to somebody, the judges said. They reduced the sentences of the 25 other accused to imprisonment ranging from two years to two months.

Nedunchezhiyan, Ravindran and Muniappan appealed in the Supreme Court. Justice Chauhan, who wrote the judgment, said, There can be absolutely no justification for the commission of such a brutal offence. Causing the death of three innocent young girls and burn injuries to another 20 is an act that shows the highest degree of depravity and brutality on the part of the three accused... The rarest of the rare cases comes when a convict would be a menace and threat to the harmonious and peaceful co-existence of society. ... The death sentence may be the most appropriate punishment for such a ghastly crime.

T.S. Subramanian
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