The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Blasts case: defence seeks contempt proceedings against prosecution

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 09, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Blasts case: defence seeks contempt proceedings against prosecution

V.S. Palaniappan

Accuses top SIT officials of meddling with dispensation of justice Some of the accused did not have legal counsel for a brief period, says defence.

COIMBATORE: Defence counsel in the Coimbatore serial blast case has urged the Special Court for Bomb Blast Cases to initiate criminal contempt proceedings against two officials of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Crime Branch CID (CB-CID), the prosecuting agency.

The city police and the SIT arrested 166 alleged activists of the Al-Umma in connection with the serial blasts on February 14, 1998 when the Bharatiya Janata Party leader L.K. Advani was scheduled to campaign in Coimbatore. The blasts claimed 58 lives and left nearly 200 injured, besides causing damage to property estimated at over Rs. 17.5 crores.

The Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry Bar Federation secretary, P. Thirumalairajan, and Bhavani B. Mohan, defence counsel for the key accused, charged the two top SIT officials of "having meddled with the process of dispensation of justice" and sought the Special Court to initiate proceedings against them under Sec 3(ii) and 3(iii) of the Criminal Contempt of Courts Act.

`Tampering with trial'

The counsel accused one official of bribing the prosecution witnesses. The other official is charged with identifying the accused in the court despite objection from the defence. The defence counsel held the prosecution guilty of "having tried to tamper with the conduct of a fair trial." If the Special Court failed to act on the representation, they would move the Madras High Court.

Owing to disputes relating to the fee structure for local advocates and those hailing from other places and over choice of counsel other than those in the panel of the State Legal Services Authority, some of the accused did not have counsels for a while.

During the "brief vacuum" some of the accused had not been defended and the witnesses who deposed against them could not be cross-examined. Hence, the defence filed a petition to recall 64 witnesses. The prosecution objected saying it would lead to a protracted trial.

Going ahead without cross-examining the 64 witnesses "would not amount to a fair trial," the defence said. If permission was denied, the counsel would be constrained to withdraw from appearing.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu