Coimbatore: The Special Court for Bomb Blast cases on Monday commenced distribution of judgment copies to convicts in the serial blasts cases. The 1,714-page judgment is in five volumes. Till Monday evening, the court had despatched 59 judgment copies to the convicts in the Coimbatore central prison.
Seven persons, serving sentences in this case, are facing trial in other cases (after the trial period being set off against conviction in this case).
They would get their copies in the next two days.
The court also provided official copies to the Principal District Sessions Court, the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, the Special Investigation Team of the Crime Branch CID, the Collector and the Commissioner of Police.
It is also despatching notices to the convicts released after setting off the trial period against conviction, asking them to collect their copies.
Judge K. Uthirapathy, in his observations on the decisions of the court to award life sentence instead of capital punishment, stated that the nature of crime committed by the accused would attract no lesser punishment than death penalty. No mercy could be shown to the accused since their cruel act of the commission of this crime went beyond all horizons and purview of mercy.
However, the mitigating factors outweighed the legal ingredients for the awarding the death penalty. These factors played a role in the court declining capital punishment.
The factors considered included prejudice caused to the undertrials in the course of the trial in terms of examination of witnesses at random without giving time for the defence, conflict of interest among the accused, inadequate legal assistance to the accused leading to interests of the accused not being fully, properly and adequately safeguarded, and denial of bail for nine years.
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