The Madras High Court Bench here on Friday directed the Additional Sessions Judge, Madurai, to accept the surrender of former Mayor P. Kulandaivelu (64) and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) functionary M. Jeyaram (45) in a case registered against them under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and pass an order on their bail petition the same day of their surrender.
Justice M. Sathyanarayanan issued the direction. .
In their petition, the DMK functionaries submitted that S. Kannan, a DMK cadre, had lodged a complaint against them at the Subramaniapuram police alleging that they had abused him verbally with reference to his caste when he and two others were involved in wall-writing on January 17 for the birthday of a DMK leader.
The police registered a case against the petitioners under Sections 294 (b) (uttering obscene words in public place) and 506 (i) (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 3 (1) (x) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
According to the petitioners, Mr. Kannan had submitted the complaint with ‘intra party political motive’ and there was no truth in it. The petitioners had been appointed, along with four others, as election committee members ahead of the parliamentary election and the complaint was registered against them to disrupt their work, they alleged.
The government advocate strongly opposed the petition stating that an inquiry was pending in the case.
In his order, Justice Sathyanarayanan said, “The Additional Sessions Judge is directed to accept the surrender of the petitioners and consider their bail applications on the very same day purely on merits and to pass suitable orders if the petitioners surrendered before the court within two weeks from the date of receipt of the judgment.”
