The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : High Court upholds order acquitting Muthappa Rai

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 29, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

High Court upholds order acquitting Muthappa Rai

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday upheld an order of a lower court acquitting Muthappa Rai in the Subbaraju murder case. The court, however, upheld the conviction and sentence against another accused, Yusuf Bachkhana.

While the State had appealed against Rai’s acquittal by a Bangalore court, Yusuf Bachkhana, who has been convicted of Subbaraju’s murder, has filed an appeal against his conviction.

Appearing for the State, the Additional State Public Prosecutor, N. Rudramuni, said Subbaraju, a realtor of Bangalore, was murdered in his office in Seshadripuram in the 1990s.

He submitted that Rai had masterminded the murder from Dubai. He said that the 34th Additional City and Sessions Judge and Presiding Officer of the Special Court, Parappana Agrahara, had on April 13, 2004, acquitted Rai. He, had, however, convicted Bachkhana to life imprisonment.

Appeal

Appealing against his conviction, Bachkhana said the test identification parade conducted on him by the investigating officer is inadmissible as it was delayed. Moreover, his photograph was shown to witnesses before the parade was conducted. The evidence of the ballistic experts is also not convincing. A Division Bench comprising Justice K. Sreedhar Rao and Justice Ravi B. Naik upheld the order of the lower court. It also came down heavily on the State Government for not filing a proper chargesheet in the case, saying that one of the witnesses in the case ought to have been arrayed as an accused.

Directed

Justice N. Kumar directed the Joint Secretary of the Department of Cooperation to be present in court on November 30. The court passed the order after it noted that the Government Advocate was unable to assist it in a matter relating to the Cooperation Department.

Stayed

A Division Bench comprising Justice S.R. Bannurmath and Justice A.N. Venugopal Gowda stayed the notices by the authorities to the States of Nagaland, Sikkim and Meghalaya, asking them to pay tax on lotteries (lottery tax).

The States had appealed against a single judge order refusing to stay the tax imposed by the State on lotteries. In its interim order, the Bench made it clear that the stay would be granted only if the appellants paid 75 per cent of the tax sought to be collected from them.

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