With the Kerala High Court considering a batch of petitions in the T.P. Chandrasekharan murder case this week, a demand by Vadakara legislator K.K.R ema that the Home Department appoint a Supreme Court-based lawyer to take up the case of her slain husband appears to have put the State government in a real predicament.
Ms. Rema, leader of Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP), who won with the support of the United Democratic Front (UDF) said that it was up to the government to decide after special public prosecutor C.K. Sreedharan expressed his inability to continue the case citing health reasons. “I have already sent a request to the Home Secretary,” she told The Hindu on Sunday.
Incidentally, advocate K. Gopalakrishna Kurup, who had appeared for the accused is now Advocate General and K.K. Ragesh, who was acquitted in an interim verdict is now private secretary to Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan. The High Court will examine the petitions on the verdict of the Special Additional Sessions Court in January 2014.
Ms. Rema said all the accused by the trial court should be punished and the killer gang hired by the CPI(M) local leadership deserved capital punishment. The CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front government has been spending crores of rupees by engaging senior lawyers to conduct cases involving that party. “So far, I have not received any response from the government,” she said.
The previous Congress-led UDF government had subscribed to Ms. Rema’s appeal. However the accused had also appealed against the verdict saying that they were innocent and sought acquittal.
The trial court had convicted 12 accused, including three functionaries of the CPI(M). Eleven were sentenced to life imprisonment and another awarded a jail term of three years. Except Kodi Suni, all other convicts were granted parole following the COVID-19 pandemic.
