In a major relief to PJ Kurien, a court in Idduki ruled on Saturday that the Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman will not be made an accused in the infamous Suryanelli gang-rape case of 1996.
Rejecting the petition filed by the victim, who was brutally raped by 42 men in 41 days when she was just 16, Judge Abraham Mathew of the District and Session Court in Thodupuzha said that the same case had already been considered once and that a person could not be put to trial more than once in the same case.
Stating that this case had been handled even by the Supreme Court, the judge observed that the petitioner had not been able to present any new evidences that necessitated naming Kurien as an accused. The victim, now 33, had consistently maintained for the past 17 years that Kurien was one of the men who had raped her during her 41-day ordeal.
The victim had requested registering a case against Kurien on the basis of the February 11 ‘disclosure’ by Dharmarajan, the only one of the 36 accused in the case to be convicted, that he himself had taken Kurien to the girl at the Rest House in Kumili, Idukki where the girl had been kept in captivity.
However, the judge said that a case could not be slapped on Kurien merely on the basis of the disclosure by Dharmarajan, which could not be taken at face value for the simple reason that he was an accused. Moreover, He had retracted his statements against Kurien later, the court pointed out.
In this situation, hidden motives could be suspected behind bringing up the case against Kurien repeatedly, the court said. Dharmarajan, who had made the disclosures on February 11 when he was in hiding, had on May 29 said that he had made those statements under intoxication and with the hope that implicating a person like Kurien could help him legally in the case.
The judge also rejected the victim’s requests to order registration of a new FIR against Kurien and to record the statement of Dharmarajan by calling him into the court. The plea to name Jamal and Unnikrishnan Nair, the persons Dharmarajan had said were with him when he had brought Kurien to Kumili, as co-accused also was rejected.
The victim had approached the Thodupuzha court with the criminal revision petition after the Magistrate Court at Peerumedu in Idukki district rejected her plea. However, the Sessions Court said it was upholding the lower court order.
Counsels for the victims said they would continue the legal battle against Kurien and would challenge the Sessions Court order in the High Court. They pointed out that it was crystal clear that Dharmarajan, lodged at the Central Prison in Thiruvananthapuram, had retracted his earlier statement under influence and pressures.