The 12 convicts, including three CPI(M) functionaries, of the case relating to the murder of rebel Marxist leader TP Chandrasekharan of Onchiyam, Kozhikode on Friday filed appeal in the Kerala High Court challenging the trial court verdict even as the Marxist party termed as conspiratorial Government decision to order a CBI probe into the plot behind the murder.
In the appeal which sought cancellation of the verdict of the Special Additional Sessions Court, Eranhipalam, Kozhikode convicting 12 of the 36 accused in the case, the convicts argued that the trial court had penalized them on the basis of false witness statements, without sufficient evidences and without examining available evidences properly.
The trial court had on January 22 convicted 12 of the total 36 accused in the Chandrasekharan murder case and had on January 28 awarded life imprisonment to 11 of them and a three-year jail term to one. Those awarded life imprisonment included the seven members of the Marxist killer gang who had hacked the rebel to death and three CPI(M) leaders on charge of conspiracy.
The appeal before the High Court alleged that the statements that formed the basis of their conviction were given by false witnesses who were handpicked by the Revolutionary Marxist Party (RMP), the political outfit Chandrasekharan and his associates had floated in 2008 after quitting the CPI(M).
The convicts said in their plea that the Prosecution had even brought in RSS activists, traditional enemies of the CPI(M), as witnesses against them. Alleging that the trial court had not properly examined even the available evidences, the appeal said there were no evidences to prove the charge of conspiracy against PK Kunhananthan, one of the three CPI(M) leaders convicted.
Apart from Kunhananthan, a member of the CPI(M)'s Panur area committee in Kannur district, two more Marxist leaders - KC Ramachandran, a local committee member, and "Trouser" Manojan, a branch committee secretary - had been awarded life-term jail for conspiracy by the trial court in Kozhikode.
Chandrasekharan, a former CPI(M) firebrand, was brutally hacked to death by a Marxist killer gang on the night of May 4, 2012 at Vallikkad near his village, Onchiyam. The Kerala Government had the other day decided to hand over to the CBI the probe into the conspiracy behind the murder on the basis of a complaint lodged by the rebel's widow, KK Rama.
At the same time, the Kerala Government has completed its preparations for appealing to the High Court against the trial court verdict acquitting 24 of the total 36 accused in the murder case and seeking harsher punishment for some of those who had been convicted. The appeal would be filed soon, sources said.
The Government appointed senior Congress functionary CK Sreedharan as the Special Public Prosecutor and RMP leader P Kumarankutty as the Associate Public Prosecutor to handle the appeal in the High Court. Sreedharan and Kumarankutty were the public prosecutors during the trial stage also.
Meanwhile, the CPI(M)'s Kerala State secretariat issued a statement saying that Thursday's Government decision to hand over to the CBI the investigation into the conspiracy behind the Chandrasekharan murder was an "unholy offspring" of a conspiracy hatched by the Congress, RMP, certain leaders of the ruling UDF and State Administrators.
"It is extremely serious that certain top police officials also were participants in this conspiracy," the statement said. Stating that the Government recommendation to hand over the probe to the CBI amounted to ridiculing the legal and judicial systems, the CPI(M) appealed to the people and all party units in the State to protest against this "butchery of democracy".