The Delhi High Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of two Anand Marga followers, Santosh Anand Avdhoot and Sudevanand Avdhoot, in a sensational 39-year-old case of attempt to murder the then Chief Justice of India A. N. Ray near the Supreme Court in 1975. They were convicted for throwing hand grenades, which did not explode, inside Justice Ray’s car.
Justice S.P. Garg of the High Court acquitted the third convict, Ranjan Dwivedi, a lawyer who was accused of conspiring with the main convicts for the attack, giving him the benefit of doubt. The 201-page judgment described the offence as the “most foul and senseless murderous attack/assault” on the then CJI.
Justice Ray, who was appointed the Chief Justice in 1973 superseding three senior judges of the Supreme Court, retired in 1977. He died on December 25, 2010, at the ripe age of 99 years.
The Central Bureau of Investigation, which probed the case, submitted before the Sessions Court during the trial that the accused had attempted to assassinate Justice Ray for refusing bail to Anand Marga leader Anandmurti. The trial court awarded 10 years’ jail term for attempt to murder and seven years’ term for conspiracy and offence under the Explosive Substances Act in 1976.
The convicts challenged the sentence through an appeal in 1976 on the ground of retraction of statement given by an approver to the CBI. This was the oldest appeal pending in the High Court, on which the hearing commenced in 2006 after the lapse of three decades.The CBI had examined as many as 85 witnesses during the trial. The High Court upheld the 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment handed down to convicts Santosh Anand and Sudevanand under Section 307 (attempt to murder) of Indian Penal Code, but reduced the seven-year jail term awarded to them under Section 120-B (conspiracy) of IPC to four years.
The convicts served the jail term for 11 years from 1975 to 1986, when they were released on bail. The High Court has directed them to surrender before the trial court on August 21 to undergo the remaining period of sentence.
The Court observed: “Considering the gravity of offence whereby [a] sinister attempt was made on the life of the then Chief Justice of India in a well-planned conspiracy with the use of highly sophisticated explosives (hand grenades), the convicts deserve no leniency.”
