The Hindu : Cassettes to be played for Vaiko in court

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 11, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Tamil Nadu

Cassettes to be played for Vaiko in court

By K. Subramanian

KANCHEEPURAM FEB. 10. L. Rajendran, judge of the special court at Poonamalee, today ordered that video and audio cassettes be played on the court premises at 10.30 a.m. on February 28 for Vaiko, MDMK general secretary, arrested under the Prevention of Terrorism Act, to see for himself images and hear utterances.

The cassettes were submitted, along with the charge sheet, by the Q branch police.

After providing also copies of certain documents sought by the accused, the court would take up the case in the afternoon for framing of charges, the judge said.

Immediately after Mr. Vaiko and eight other accused were produced in the court, the judge was informed that Mr. Vaiko himself would play defence counsel, G. Devadoss would be counsel for Veera Elavarasan, Bhoominathan and Seventhiappan; K. S. Dhinakaran would appear for Ganesan, Alagusundaram and Ganesamurthy, and G. Nanmaran would be counsel for P. S. Manian and Nagarajan.

When Mr. Dhinakaran argued for provision of copies of certain documents included as material evidence, the judge initially said counsel could personally inspect them but later decided to give the required documents.

Counsel wanted, besides the playing of video and audio cassettes, copies of documents including the book Sindhiya Rathathaal Sivandha Mann containing 56 pages of Mr. Vaiko's speeches supporting Prabakaran, leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, and his outfit and also Naathiatravanaa Tamizhan by the MDMK leader, also supporting the LTTE and Tamil Eelam.

When the public prosecutor, S. Jayakumar, said it would be a hard task to provide copies of all pages in certain documents, the judge said they would have to be provided when counsel asked for them.

CM `destroying democratic norms'

Talking to newspersons later, Mr. Vaiko said the Chief Minister, Jayalalithaa, was ``destroying all democratic norms'' of the Legislature and ``surrendering'' the sovereign rights of the House by having the DMK MLA, Parithi Ilamvazhuthi, arrested. It was wrong to refer any incident in the Legislature to court when the House had the power to take any action including punishment.

Answering a question, he said the views of both the DMK and the MDMK were more or less identical, particularly in the fight against the ``fascist Jayalalithaa Government''.

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