Four years later, final arguments start in Maruti violence case

More than four years after violence at the Maruti plant in Manesar left a senior manager dead and several executives injured, the case at the local court seems to be drawing to a close with the prosecution beginning final arguments on Friday.

At the court of Additional District and Sessions Judge R.P. Goyal, public prosecutor Anurag Hooda, who is also Deputy District Attorney (Gurugram), gave an overview of the case including the circumstances that led to the violence and the large-scale vandalism at the company’s Manesar plant on July 18, 2012.

Defence’s perspective

Mr. Hooda also produced 88 pictures, taken a day after the incident, to show the damage. However, senior defence advocate Vrinda Grover objected to this saying it was not a matter of judicial record, and that the pictures should be seen from the judicial record only.

Mr. Hooda further told the court that as per police records, a total of 213 people were made accused in the case with 148 of them facing trial. He added that 65 people were declared proclaimed offenders while two of them — Sukhdev and Satish — were arrested. The public prosecutor also informed the court that initially 55 people were named in the FIR registered on July 18, 2012. Of these, 24 are still absconding. He also read out statements of the Labour Department’s officials, who are prosecution witnesses in the case.

Ms. Grover, meanwhile, said that the prosecution on Friday had only presented the “broad contours of the multi-layered case”.

The next hearing has been fixed for December 13.