The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Prosecution completes arguments

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Friday, Aug 11, 2006

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Prosecution completes arguments

V.S. Palaniappan

In Coimbatore serial blasts case

Coimbatore: The prosecution the Special Court to deal with the accused persons severely in accordance with the law, since the victims were innocent people who had no links with politics, g<149>overnment or religious fundamentalism.

completed its 23-day argument. prosecution counsel, T.A. Selvaraj relying on detailed bill printouts, placed his arguments on the phone calls made by the undertrials prior to and after the commissioning of offence (from STD booths in Kerala and Tamil Nadu) to two phone<149> numbers in Chennai (landline and mobile) which were in the custody and usage of S.A. Basha, first accused. He also argued on procurement of mobile phones by Ooma Babu. Calls were made from s Abdul Nasser Maudhanyalso, he said<149>.

"An evil"

Quoting Supreme Court rulings and books on terrorism, the State Public Prosecutor, Raja Elango submitted, "Terrorism, irrespective of its slogans, personal glorification, is an evil which cannot be tolerated by any society. Protest is the essence of democracy. Strike, boycott, processions and demonstrations are legitimate methods of expressing dissatisfaction to draw the attention of the Government. But the extreme form of such political and moral pressure may be civil disobedience. But once the protest degenerates into violence, it is opposed to basic democratic values. It shakes the rule of law, the structural basis of any democracy".

"Whether such action is result of frustration or generated due to feeling of injustice or oppression, it cannot be accepted as legitimate and legal." In respect of objections regarding marking of computer generated print <149>outs of phone call details without signature, he said that Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act incorporated in 2000 permits<149> Though the offence was committed in 1998 and documents were collected then, the prosecution had marked it only in 2003. The issuing authorities had appeared before this court as prosecution witnesses and marked these documents (not through prosecution) besides giving oral evidence.

When defence counsel, P. Thirumalairajan and Bhavani B Mohan said that the printouts proved only the phone calls between two numbers and not the persons who made those calls or the contents of the conversation, Mr. Elango,<149> said that any investigation would be done only after the commission of offence, if the prosecuting agency could tape these calls, the serial blasts could have been averted. name sby witnesses not figuring in the First Information Report (FIR), he said that subsequent investigations and depositions by witness would only throw light on the offender and the complainant could be expected only to inform a crime and not the criminal. On discrepancies in FIR) <149>forms<149>, Mr. Elango said that Police Standing Order (PSO) rules a<149>re only directives/guidelines and not mandatory , <149>f forms were not available, they could borrow it from other stations or even register an FIR in manuscript. Mr. Thirumalairajan said <149>that as per<149> Supreme Court if the PSO guidelines were in conformity with statutes, they should be strictly adhered to.

o<149>n the delay in registering an FIR in the car bomb case (Lokmanya Street in R.S. Puram), Mr.Elango said car bomb was part of the investigations in the mother case,hence<149> registering another FIR and that too without delay only a technicality not affecting the root of the case.

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