The prosecution in the T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case is planning to move fresh applications in the trial court seeking to initiate perjury charges against more witnesses who had turned hostile during their deposition.
Already, the prosecution has sought action against three persons, including a government official and a school teacher who had turned hostile during their deposition. These applications have been filed before the Special Additional District and Sessions Court (Marad cases) under Section 340 (procedure in cases) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. Special Judge R. Narayana Pisharadi, who is trying the case, is looking into these applications.
As of now, 49 witnesses have turned hostile in the case pertaining to the killing of the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP) leader at Onchiyam on May 4, 2012. The trial began on February 11 and the examination of prosecution witnesses had now reached its final stages.
The witnesses against whom the prosecution sought perjury charges are C.K. Bindumon of Thalassery, P. Ajith, a school teacher at the Manancheri U.P. School and an activist of the Kerala School Teacher’s Association (KSTA), and G. Ajith, Health Inspector of Palakkad municipality and member of the CPI (M)-backed Municipal Corporation and Workers Staff Union.
Bindumon had to testify that the sticker with the Arabic words ‘Masha Allah’ (God willed it) stuck on the front and rear windshield of the vehicle used by the assailants and the fake number-plate on the vehicle had been made by an employee at his shop. But he retracted the statement he gave to investigators.
Similarly P. Ajith denied in court the statement he had given to investigators that he had found Rajikanth, 25 accused attending a blood-group identification camp conducted by Friends Arts and Sports Club, Kallilthazham, after the police recovered a receipt of this programme from the multi utility vehicle used by the hired assailants.
G. Ajith, who was junior health inspector at Mattannur municipality at the time of the incident, had signed the mahassar prepared by the police. However, he differed in court that the police had made an observation of the verandah of the house of the 12th accused Jyothi Babu, member, Kunnothuparamba local committee of the CPI (M). Sources told The Hindu that the prosecution wanted to seek perjury cases particularly against those witnesses who had retracted the statements they had given under Section 164 (recording of confessions and statements) of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC).
The procedure to take up perjury charges against hostile witnesses involved the judge carrying out an inquiry by checking documents and the statements of the hostile witnesses during their examination in court. If there was prima facie evidence of perjury, he would either draft a complaint under Section 193 (punishment for false evidence) under the Indian Penal Code or forward it to the respective magistrate or he himself would take up the case in the trial court, sources said.
