Bringing immense relief to Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman PJ Kurien, the Kerala High Court on Wednesday dismissed a petition filed by the victim of the infamous Suryanelli serial rape scandal seeking orders for reinvestigation against him, who, according to her, was one of the 42 men who had brutally raped her during her 41-day ordeal in 1996 when she was just 16 years old.
The victim, now 33, had approached the High Court seeking a probe against Kurien after a Magistrate Court in Peerumedu and the Sessions Court in Thodupuzha, both in Idukki district, rejected her petitions containing the same request. Justice P Bhavasdasan of the High Court said that there was no reason for interfering with the lower courts’ orders.
The father of the victim responded to the High Court verdict by saying that it had now been proved that nothing could be done against ‘big’ men. “Such developments are affecting our trust in the judiciary. All that is remaining to be done is this: Somebody should dig graves here in front of our house for us,” he added.
The victim had sought a reopening of the case against Kurien on the basis of a disclosure made in February by Dharmarajan, second accused in the rape case and the only one of the 36 accused to be punished, that he himself had taken Kurien on February 19, 1996 to the rest house in Kumili, Idukki where she had been kept captive. However, he retracted the statement later.
Justice Bhavadasan dismissed her petition with the observation that the statement of Dharmarajan, an accused, could not be accepted as evidence and, moreover, he had submitted an affidavit in the court retracting that statement. In the affidavit, Dharmarajan had said that he did not even know Kurien personally. The court pointed out that the Kerala High Court and the Supreme Court had discharged Kurien from the case as back as in 2007 and that it was unfortunate that he was being harassed even now in the name of the same case. Justice Bhavadasan said that the Supreme Court order discharging Kurien from the case had been final.
The judge, who refused to consider the victim’s argument that the lower courts had dismissed her petitions without considering her arguments, expressed compassion towards her. The victim had for the past 17 years consistently held that Kurien, whom she identified from a photograph published in the newspaper, had been one of her tormentors.
Dharmarajan, who had jumped parole in 2005, had on February 11 this year told a Malayalam television channel in Mysore that he himself had taken Kurien in his own car to the Panchayat Rest House in Kumili, Idukki where the victim was kept in captivity on the evening of February 19, 1996.
Dharmarajan was arrested three days later but his disclosure unleashed a political storm in Kerala with demand strengthening for probe against Kurien and calls for his resignation. The disclosure was followed by statements by several others suggesting that the Kerala Police’s finding that Kurien could not have reached Kumili at the particular time could have been wrong.