Congress leader Ramesh Chennithala and the Bharatiya Abhibhashaka Parishad have approached the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Thiruvananthapuram, with intervening petitions in the discharge petition filed by Education Minister V. Sivankutty and five others.
Mr. Sivankutty and other five Left Democratic Front leaders had earlier filed the petition to discharge them from a criminal case booked in connection with the unruly events in the Assembly on March 13, 2015.
As the case came up, the prosecution and defence lawyers objected to the move.
Deputy Director of Prosecution K. Balachandra Menon contended that the move of the Congress leader and others was to cast a shadow on the fairness of investigation and the prosecution. Moreover, a third party did not have the locus standi to file an intervening petition in a discharge petition. No copy of the application for the intervening petition had been made available to the prosecution, he contended.
Supriya Devayani, counsel for the parishad, sought to intervene in the case as the organisation felt that the State government had made its intentions clear to leave the accused off the hook. A situation had evolved in the case where there was no effective prosecution.
The government had earlier admitted that it suffered a pecuniary loss of ₹2.20 lakh in the incidents . Since public money was lost in the incidents, the general public had the right to intervene in the case, she contended.
The defence lawyers too objected to the intervening petition. They also sought a copy of the CD in which the proceedings of the House were recorded and the copies of the impleading petition.
The court posted the case for August 31 for hearing.
