The Hindu : National : All but one acquitted in Niyogi murder case

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Friday, Jan 21, 2005

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National

All but one acquitted in Niyogi murder case

By J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI, JAN. 20. The Supreme Court today acquitted five of the six accused, including two industrialists, in the case of murder of Shankar Guha Niyogi, Bhilai's most famous trade union leader. However, the court awarded life imprisonment to the assailant, Paltan Mallah, who was awarded the death sentence by the trial court and acquitted by the High Court.

A Bench, consisting of K.G. Balakrishnan and A.R. Lakshmanan, held that the overall evidence given by the prosecution would only show that some agitation had been going on against the management of these industries and Niyogi was spearheading many of them. This, by itself, would not prove the prosecution case of conspiracy against the accused.

The Bench disposed of a batch of special leave petitions filed by the Central Bureau of Investigation, the then Madhya Pradesh Government (now Chhattisgarh), Asha Niyogi, wife of Niyogi and the Chhattisgarh Mukti Morcha, challenging a judgment of the Madhya Pradesh High Court acquitting all the accused.

Theprosecution case was that a hired assassin killed Niyogi on September 27, 1991, while he was was asleep his house in Bhilai. He was killed a fortnight after he had submitted a memorandum to the then President, R. Venkataraman, signed by 50,000 workers, alleging threats against him and other union leaders by a few industrialists in Bhilai.

After a six-year trial in which 190 witnesses were examined, the trial court in Durg gave six persons, including two industrialists, the life sentence. They were also fined Rs.10 lakhs each. Paltan Mallah — the hired assassin — was sentenced to death. But in 1998 all of them were exonerated by the High Court for lack of evidence. Appeals were filed in the Supreme Court challenging the acquittal.

The Supreme Court Bench upheld the acquittal of five of the accused. On the acquittal of the assailant, Mallah, the Bench said the case against him was proved beyond reasonable doubt. But since the incident had taken place in 1991 and there was a long lapse of time, the Bench said that "we do not think that the sentence of death imposed on him by the Sessions Court is justified in the circumstances."

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