KOCHI: NIA Court judge Anil K Bhaskar in his judgment used strong words to condemn the act of six PFI activists who were convicted for chopping off the hand of professor T J Joseph in 2010. In fact, the verdict was quite surprising to the opposition counsel as this time three convicted persons received life imprisonment compared to eight years imprisonment given to the convicts during the first phase trial in 2015.
Judge Anil termed the victim Joseph’s experience really horrible. “What has been committed is a terrorist act. The act of the accused is a challenge to the secular fabric of our nation. It attempts to establish a parallel religious judicial system which is absolutely illegal, illegitimate and unconstitutional. It has no place in independent India under our constitutional scheme,” the court said.
The court observed that though a suo motu criminal case was registered against Joseph following the question paper row, the accused were not ready to leave it to the court of law to adjudicate the matter.
“They took the law into their hands and declared it as an act of blasphemy. Then they themselves delivered the sentence as per the religious text and executed the sentence by chopping off the right hand of the professor, the hand with which he penned the question paper. This most uncivilised act cannot be countenanced at all,” Judge Anil observed.
Anil also had strong words for the second accused Sajil. The court cited the submission of a protected witness who deposed that Sajil was in a celebratory mood when the news about the death of the professor’s wife came out. “I don’t find any possibility for the reformation of the accused,” the court observed.
Defence counsel P C Noushad told TNIE that the verdict was surprising. “In 2015, 10 persons sentenced to eight years of rigorous imprisonment also were convicted for the same offences as Sajil, Nazar and Najeeb. So we were expecting a sentence similar this time also. We will take this matter to a higher court,” Noushad said.