Days after the death of 83-year-old P. Saraswathy, one of the convicts in the 2004 Kumbakonam fire tragedy that led to the death of 94 schoolchildren, the Madras High Court Bench here on Tuesday suspended the sentence imposed on five of the 10 convicts on the condition that they must appear before a judicial magistrate court in Kumbakonam on first Monday of the English calendar month till further orders.
A Division Bench of Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and V.M. Velumani also called for a medical report from the in-house doctor at the prison in which the prime accused, ‘Pulavar’ R. Palanisamy (87), founder of Sri Krishna Middle School where the fire broke out, was lodged ever since he was convicted along with nine others by Thanjavur Principal District and Sessions Court on July 30, 2014 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
The order was passed after N. Mohideen Basha, counsel for the prime accused, told the court that Mr. Palanisamy’s wife Ms. Saraswathy, who was the school correspondent, died in custody due to uterus cancer as she failed to respond to the treatment provided at Royapettah Government Hospital in Chennai. He claimed that the prime accused was also suffering from various ailments related to old age and hence his sentence should be suspended.
The trial court had also convicted their school headmistress J. Santhalakshmi, noon-meal organiser R. Vijayalakshmi, cook R. Vasanthi, the then District Elementary Education Officer R. Balaji, the then Assistant in the DEEO’s office S. Sivaprakasam, the then Superintendent in the office T. Thandavan and then Personal Assistant to the DEEO G. Durairaj and sentenced them to five years of rigorous imprisonment.
The High Court on Tuesday suspended the sentences of Santhalakshmi, Balaji, Sivaprakasam, Thandavan and Durairaj. It also ordered that the medical report with respect to Mr. Palanisamy should be submitted in court by November 29 to take a decision on his plea for suspending the life sentence.
