Tamil Nadu - Madurai   

Life convict argues his case for premature release

MADURAI: He was over five feet tall and wore a neatly tucked white shirt with black pants. He walked into the Madras High Court Bench here on Monday with shining black shoes, well combed hair, cleanly shaven face, a briefcase on his right hand and a water bottle on his left. He was P. Veera Bharathi, a life convict undergoing imprisonment for rape-cum-murder of a 16-year-old girl.

Fluent in English, the convict claimed to have acquired an engineering degree, a Master of Arts degree, a Masters in Philosophy and other qualifications during his incarceration since March 15, 1998. He had come to the court to argue a case seeking premature release as was done in the case of 1,405 convicts during the Anna birth centenary celebrations in 2008.

According to him, the Principal Sessions Court at Virudhunagar had convicted him along with two others in 1999 and imposed death penalty. On appeal, the Principal Seat of the High Court in Chennai modified the capital punishment to life sentence on August 10, 2000. A Special Leave Petition (SLP) and also a review petition filed in the Supreme Court were dismissed in 2000 and 2002 respectively.

“Being an innocent, I could not tolerate the above said dismissals and once again I approached the Supreme Court through a second SLP with a prayer to subject me to narco-analysis, brain mapping and lie-detection tests to prove my innocence and with a declaration to hang me if proved to be a culprit,” he said and added that the court refused to entertain the second petition.

“My parents expired during my incarceration and my wife and child have been leading a solitary living like orphans,” his affidavit placed before a Division Bench comprising Justice K. Suguna and Justice C.S. Karnan read. The judges were seized of a writ appeal filed by the convict against the dismissal of his writ petition, seeking premature release, by a single judge on February 26, this year.

The convict stated that the Government chose not to release him along with 1,405 convicts in 2008 just because he was imposed with death penalty by the trial court.

The reason cited by the State was unconstitutional, unfair and against natural justice, he claimed and said that the High Court had not commuted but modified his sentence based on the merits of the case.

“All these qualities and general good behaviour had not been considered for premature release,” he said in his affidavit and pointed out that he had been released from prison on emergency and ordinary leave, without any police escort, on more than 40 occasions.

After hearing him for a while, the Division Bench adjourned the matter to June 21.

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