The state government has decided to file an appeal before the Supreme Court against the recent orders of the High Court in the sensational Tsundur Dalit massacre case.
It directed the special officer of the Advocate-on-Records for Andhra Pradesh in New Delhi to take immediate action for filing an appeal before the Supreme Court. It also directed the special officer to intimate the progress of the case from time to time.
On April 22, a division bench of the High Court had acquitted all the 56 accused in the case on the ground that the prosecution had failed to prove the offence. While allowing a batch of appeals by the convicts in the case challenging the judgment of the special court, the High Court pointed out that the prosecution had failed to prove the exact time and place of the death of the deceased and the identity of the persons who attacked them. According to the prosecution, eight Dalits were hacked to death in broad daylight on August 6, 1991, with over 400 people chasing them along the bund of an irrigation canal in Tsundur.
In August 2007, the special court sentenced 21 accused to life imprisonment and 35 others to one-year rigorous imprisonment, and imposed a penalty of `2000 on each. The High Court bench found that on August 6, 1991, no complaint of attack or murder was received by the Tsundur police or any nearby police station. It also found that though eight persons were said to have been killed the same day, the recovery of bodies was spread over three days. While setting aside the order of the special court, the bench said once the trial court finds that the evidence of a particular witness cannot be accepted, part of that evidence too is not acceptable.