MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court awarded four years imprisonment to retired Deputy Superintendent of Police Rajaram in 2007 Dinakaran newspaper office attack case.
A division bench comprising Justices P N Prakash and B Pugalendhi sentenced the DSP to one year rigorous imprisonment under 217 (Public servant disobeying direction of law with intent to save person from punishment) of the Indian Penal Code and four years imprisonment under section 221 (1) (Punishment for intentional omission to apprehend on the part of public servant bound to apprehend) of IPC. The sentences will run concurrently, they said.
The Bench passed the order on an appeal filed by the CBI against the acquittal of 17 persons who were accused in the case, including the DSP.
The court recently awarded life sentence to nine of the 17 accused including history sheeter Attack Pandi. The Bench also found Rajaram guilty for offences under the above sections and had summoned him for questioning on sentence on Monday.
When Rajaram appeared before the Court on Monday, the Judges castigated him for failing to prevent the death of the three employees during the attack. "What would you have done if it had been your children who were trapped in the fire inside the building," they asked.
However, Rajaram submitted that he was made a scapegoat in the case and that he had followed only the instructions given by his superiors, but the same was rejected by the Judges, following which they pronounced the sentence.
The office of the Tamil daily owned by late DMK leader M Karunanidhi's grandnephew Kalanithi Maran came under attack on May 9, 2007 after the newspaper published a survey report which suggested that M K Stalin had greater public approval as the political successor of Karunanidhi than his elder brother M K Alagiri.
A mob of men led by V P Pandi alias Attack Pandi, an alleged Alagiri supporter, set the office on fire which had lead to the death of three employees.