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Approach HC for relief, SC tells `Nakkeeran' Gopal

By Our Legal Correspondent

NEW DELHI FEB. 7. The Supreme Court, while declining to entertain a writ petition from the editor of the Tamil bi-weekly, Nakkeeran, R.R. Gopal, today asked him to approach the Madras High Court for relief. He had sought a direction to hand over to the CBI the cases relating to the forest brigand, Veerappan, in which he apprehended that he would be implicated.

A Bench, comprising Justice S.S.M. Quadri and Justice Ashok Bhan, dismissing the petition said that no fundamental right of the petitioner was violated warranting a petition under Article 32 of the Constitution before the apex court. However, it would not preclude him from seeking appropriate relief before the Madras High Court, the Bench added.

Appearing for Mr. Gopal, senior counsel, K. Subramanian, told the Bench that the police were harassing, intimidating and keeping the petitioner under surveillance.

He said even those lawyers who appeared for the petitioner were being harassed and wanted a direction that the two cases involving Veerappan, including the one relating to the kidnap of the Kannada matinee idol, Rajkumar, be handed over to the CBI.

In his petition, Mr. Gopal submitted that since December 2001, attempts were made to implicate him in two cases, including the `Rajkumar kidnap case' and he had been granted anticipatory bail by the High Court.

He said in the first week of December, the former DGP of Karnataka, C. Dinakar, published a book "Veerappan's prize catch: Rajkumar'', wherein several defamatory imputations had been made against him.

He alleged that from the evening of December 27, a posse of policemen in three vans were waiting near his residence indulging in surveillance activities, presumably looking for opportunities to abduct him.

He recalled how a reporter of his magazine, Sivasubramaniam, was kidnapped and implicated in several cases and apprehended that he could also meet the same fate. Hence the present petition.

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