The Madras High Court Bench here on Thursday condoned a delay of 1,434 days in preferring a revision petition against a lower court judgment acquitting 17 persons from 2007 Dinakara n newspaper office attack case.
Eschewing objections raised by the accused to condone the delay, Justice G.M. Akbar Ali directed the High Court Registry to take the revision petition on file and tag it along with an appeal filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in 2011.
Poongodi, mother of one of the three newspaper employees who were charred to death in the attack, had filed the revision petition. She claimed that the Principal Sessions Court here had wrongly acquitted the accused on December 9, 2009.
A mob had hurled petrol bombs inside the newspaper office on May 9, 2007, following publication of results of a survey. M. Karunanidhi, the then Chief Minister, ordered transfer of investigation to the CBI which filed a charge sheet against 17 individuals.
However, the Sessions Court acquitted all the 17 accused, including V.P. Pandi alias ‘Attack’ Pandi.
The CBI preferred an appeal against the acquittal in July 2010 along with a petition to condone a delay in filing the appeal. A Division Bench of Justice S. Rajeswaran and Mr. Justice Ali had condoned the delay in March 2011, and the appeal is pending.
The present revision petition by Ms. Poongodi was filed in March this year. Subsequently on Tuesday, it directed its Registry to print the name of the accused in the ‘cause list’ (list of cases heard by the court) for Thursday.
