After considerable delay, Tripura government finally moved the Supreme Court against the acquittal of the Editor of a vernacular local daily Sushil Chowdhury who has been indicted in horrifying triple murder case. The High Court of Tripura on December 10 last year set aside the life sentence of now 77year old accused handed down by the trial court and freed him for lack of reasonable evidence.
Standing counsel of the state government in New Delhi submitted a special leave petition in the apex court early this week challenging the acquittal. An official of state’s law department said on Friday that the court admitted the SLP and issued notices to the complainant and the respondent.
Police had chargesheeted Sushil Chowdhury in connection with the broad daylight murders of newspaper manager Ranjit Choudhury, proof reader Sujit Bhattacharjee and driver Balaram Ghosh inside the office of the Dainik Ganadoot in Agartala on May 19 2013. It claimed the editor conspired and engaged driver Balaram to murder of Ranjit Choudhury over a feud and the other victims killed each other during a scuffle that followed first incident.
The High Court in its order questioned the fairness and correctness of the investigation as it was inconclusive on the motive behind the crime and the identity of the actual culprits. The division bench of the court headed by then Chief Justice Deepak Kumar Gupta rejected the theories of the police that framed Mr Chowdhury as the lone conspirator and arranged sequence of murders.
The trial court of West Tripura Additional District and Sessions Judge had on July 17 2014 awarded Sushil Chowdhury life imprisonment and slapped a fine of Rs 50,000 on him in a swift trial. The newspaper editor has all along been claiming that unknown assassins had organised the murders when he was away at his private residence on the campus.
