Assembly bedlam case: Minister V Sivankutty and 4 others appear before court, deny charges

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Five accused in the Kerala Assembly ruckus case including General Education Minister V Sivankutty, appeared before the Chief Judicial First Class Magistrate court on Wednesday and denied the charges against them in the case. They denied the charges after hearing the chargesheet. The case has been posted for further heaving on September 26.

However, LDF convener EP Jayarajan, who is also the accused in the case, did not turn up before the court on Wednesday. His advocate informed the court that he could not appear due to illness. The court directed Jayarajan to appear when the case is heard again on September 26. Avoiding the summons to appear in court may result in an arrest warrant, the court warned.

Meanwhile, the court directed the prosecution to hand over the footage of the incident submitted by the investigation team to the defence counsel within ten days. When the case is considered again on September 26, other matters including the trial date, will be decided.

The case pertains to a conflict inside the Assembly on March 13, 2015, when the opposition attempted to obstruct the then finance Minister KM Mani from presenting the annual state budget, as he was an accused in the bar bribery case. Following this, a case was registered against five LDF MLAs. The accused are V Sivankutty, EP Jayarajan, KT Jaleel MLA,  K Ajith, CK Sadasivan and K Kunjumuhammed. The accused have also been charged with destruction of public property, trespassing and causing damage, which carries a jail term of up to five years.

The charge sheet of the crime branch says that public property worth Rs 2.20 lakh was destroyed during the conflict. Earlier, the High Court had rejected V Sivankutty's plea to stay the trial proceedings. The state government had approached the Supreme Court to withdraw the case but faced a setback. Recently, the High Court rejected the demand of the defendants to stay the trial proceedings.