The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday sentenced the then Deputy Superintendent of Police V. Rajaram to four years rigorous imprisonment in connection with the attack on the Madurai office of Tamil daily Dinakaran .
A Division Bench of Justices P. N. Prakash and B. Pugalendhi, which had sentenced nine persons to life imprisonment including key accused ‘Attack’ Pandi in the case, convicted Rajaram (who retired as Additional Superintendent of Police) for failing to prevent the arsonists. The incident left three employees of the newspaper dead. The court imposed vicarious liability on the State and ordered a compensation of ₹5 lakh each to the families of the dead.
Mr. Rajaram was sentenced to one-year rigorous imprisonment under Section 217 (public servant disobeying the law to save person from punishment) and four years rigorous imprisonment under Section 221 (intentional omission to apprehend someone) of the Indian Penal Code. The court said the sentences would run concurrently. During the course of the hearing, Rajaram, who was present before the court to know the quantum of his sentence in the case, told the judges that he was made a scapegoat and prayed for a minimum sentence. The court said that he had failed to control the mob and could have at least fired in the air to stop them.
Video footage
After perusing the video footage and photographs of the incident in-camera, the court had expressed its shock over Rajaram being seen with Pandi as if he was a police escort.
As many as 49 witnesses, including 21 policemen, turned hostile in the case. The court relied entirely on the video footage and photographs to draw a conclusion in the case. It observed that the case had an eerie similarity with the Best Bakery case of 2002 in Vadodara.
In 2007, Dinakaran carried a survey on who was the preferred choice as the political heir of then DMK supremo M. Karunanidhi.
Following the publication of the survey that favoured M.K. Stalin, a mob led by Pandi, allegedly a close aide of former Union Minister M.K. Alagiri, hurled petrol bombs at the newspaper’s office.
