By IANS
Chennai : Three AIADMK party men, sentenced to death for the 2002 Dharmapuri bus burning in which three women were killed, got a short reprieve after the Tamil Nadu government told the high court Friday that the capital punishment would be implemented only after the Supreme Court has heard their mercy appeal.
Public prosecutor Raja Elango told the Madras High Court that the Coimbatore jail authorities, where the three men are being held, have issued the order not to execute the death sentence till the apex court disposes of their mercy petitions.
The lower court had fixed Jan 10 as the execution date for the accused – Neduchezhian, Ravindran and Muniappan. They had then moved the Supreme Court and filed special leave petitions (SLP) against the sentence.
On Dec 6 last year, the Madras High Court upheld the death penalty on the three AIADMK men after they were found guilty of setting a college bus on fire on Feb 2, 2002, that resulted in the death of the three college students.
The three students of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, Coimbatore, were burnt alive when their college bus was set ablaze near Elakiyampatti in Dharmapuri by AIADMK men to protest the conviction of former chief minister J. Jayalalitha in a corruption case.
In February 2007, First Additional Sessions Judge D. Krishnaraja of a lower court in Salem district convicted 28 AIADMK activists on lesser charges but sentenced the three leaders of the mob to death.
Rejecting the appeals of the three men against the conviction, a division bench comprising Justices D. Murugesan and V. Periyakaruppaiah had described the killing of innocent victims as a “diabolical and revolting crime that warranted no lesser punishment”, and said nothing else would meet the ends of justice.
The judges had said: “There were no mitigating circumstances, and no purpose would be served by awarding any punishment that would be reformative rather than deterrent”.
The high court had upheld the lower court order and confirmed the sentence.