A court in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday issued summons to four senior Congress legislators for allegedly outraging the modesty of woman MlAs belonging to the CPI(M)-led Opposition lDF amidst the violent ruckus that occurred in the Kerala Assembly on March 13 last.
The First Class Judicial Magistrate Court-3 in Thiruvananthapuram initiated the case against Congress lawmakers K Sivadasan Nair (Aranmula), Dominic Presentation (Kochi), AT George (Parassala) and MA Wahid (Kazhakkoottam) on the basis of the private complaints filed by lDF MlAs Jameela Prakasam (Janata Dal-S, Kovalam) and KK lathika (CPI-M, Kuttyadi).
The four Congress MlAs were issued the summons for allegedly outraging the modesty of the woman legislators of the Opposition and for causing unlawful obstruction. The case against Nair and Presentation was taken on the petition of Jameela Prakasam and that against Wahid and George was taken on the basis of lathika’s complaint.
Immediately after the incident on March 13, the woman MlAs had submitted complaints to Assembly Speaker N Sakthan and the State Governor against the Congress MlAs. They approached the police later as no action was taken on their complaints. later, they moved the court with the private complaints against the Congress lawmakers.
The court decided to summon the four MlAs after gathering evidence from the two woman legislators and examining several witnesses. It had also examined the still pictures and videos of the developments in the Assembly on March 13. The four Congress MlAs will have to appear before the court in person on April 20 when it takes up the case again.
The incident which formed the basis for the case occurred amidst the violent ruckus in the Assembly when several woman legislators from the Opposition tried to prevent Finance Minister KM Mani, facing charges of taking bribe from bar owners and leaking out Budget proposals for money, from presenting the Budget for 2015-16.
As per the videos and still photographs on the incidents in the Assembly on that day, the four Congress MlAs could be seen physically and verbally assaulting the woman MlAs from the Opposition side when they tried to approach Chief Minister Oommen Chandy who was sitting in the front row while Mani was preparing to read out the Budget paper.
According to Sivadasan Nair and other ruling party MlAs, they had not assaulted the women but had only tried to block them from reaching near the Chief Minister as their intention was to attack him. However, the woman legislators rejected this by saying that they were physically and verbally assaulted by the four men.
The incident had led to several controversies after Sivadasan Nair alleged that Jameela Prakasam had bitten him on the shoulder and she replied that she had done so when he assaulted her physically. Prakasam had even called a Press conference to explain with the help of photographs how Nair and other Congress MlAs had allegedly molested her and her colleagues.
Speaker Sakthan had suspended till the end of the Budget session five lDF MlAs — V Sivankutty, K Ajith, EP Jayarajan, K Kunhammed and KT Jaleel — in the name of the unprecedented ruckus in the House. They were charged with destruction of House property like computer, keyboard and mike and other acts of vandalism.