MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court recently dismissed a batch of petitions filed against the GOs passed by the state government for the premature release of 13 persons convicted in the Melavalavu massacre case, in which six persons belonging to scheduled caste were hacked to death by dominant caste members on June 30, 1997.
A Bench of justices G Jayachandran and Sunder Mohan observed that GOs had been issued only after due consideration of relevant facts. “It includes the objections from the side of victims and the conduct of the prisoners during parole and in prison.
The law and order situation prevailing in the village after three out of 17 convicts were released prematurely earlier,” they noted. No irrelevant or extraneous materials entered into the decision-making process, they added.
The order was passed on the petitions filed by the family members of the six victims, a Madurai-based advocate P Rathinam and also a VCK cadre Balachandra Bose alias Ulaganambi from Dindigul, seeking to quash the GOs dated November 8, 2019.
The victims’ kin claimed in their petition that they were not given an opportunity to express their objection against the convicts’ premature release. The gravity of the offence and its effect on society was also not considered, they added.