The Kerala High Court on Monday upheld the order of the special court for offences under the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Mannarkad, cancelling the bail granted to 11 accused in the Attappady Madhu lynching case.
The court, however, set aside the cancellation of the bail granted to Abdul Kareem, the 11th accused in the case as it found that there were no materials to show that he had contacted any of the witnesses through phone or directly.
The special court had passed the order cancelling the bail of all the 12 accused on a petition by the prosecution alleging that the accused had contacted the prosecution witnesses several times over the phone, violating bail conditions.
Dismissing the appeals filed by the accused against the special court’s order, Justice Kauser Edappagath pointed out that the telephone calls between the accused and the witnesses were monitored by the Witness Protection Cell of the District Police Office and most of the accused were found in contact with all the major witnesses over the phone on many occasions. It was also noticed that the mother of the deceased was threatened, and a crime was registered thereof.
The judge said the special court, observing the demeanour of the accused and the witnesses and taking into consideration all these circumstances, formed an opinion that the witnesses turned hostile because they were won over by the accused and that the witnesses gave false evidence to the court contrary to their previous statements.
Taking into account all these circumstances and by applying the test of balance of probabilities, it was evident that the accused, except the 11th accused, had misused the privilege of bail granted to them and won over the witnesses. In these circumstances, the court below was absolutely justified in cancelling their bail.
The accused who had moved the appeal against the cancellation of their bail are Marakkar, Radhakrishnan, Aneesh, Shamsudeen, Aboobacker, Najeeb, Jaijumon, Sajeev, Muneer, Biju and Siddiq.
