Date:25/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/25/stories/2008112555170400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

26 law college students move court for bail

Special Correspondent

Three others in General Hospital seek anticipatory bail

CHENNAI: Twenty-six students of the Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College here have moved the Sessions Court seeking bail in the case relating to the clash at the institution on November 12.

Three other students, who were now in the intensive care unit of the General Hospital here, have filed an anticipatory bail application before the same court.

City Public Prosecutor M.Shahjahan took notice. The petitions have been posted for Tuesday.

In the bail application, Chithirai Selvan of Pattukottai in Thanjavur district and 25 others submitted they had been charged under various IPC sections, including attempt to murder and criminal intimidation. The police had registered a case and a counter case in connection with the incident. In the FIR, no specific overt acts were attributed against the petitioners. They said since the constitutional authorities failed in their duty to check infiltration of caste-based organisations among students and abetting untouchability, the clash occurred. The need of the hour was to provide effective counselling to all students who sustained injuries and detained and also all other sections of students for bringing peace in the college.

In the anticipatory bail application, Bharathi Kannan and two others submitted that they were victims and sustained serious injuries. Hence, they were innocent.

“Incorrect FIR”

The First Bench comprising Chief Justice A.K.Ganguly and Justice F.M.Ibrahim Kalifulla posted for Tuesday along with other petitions relating to the incident a writ petition by V.Kasinatha Bharathi, advocate, seeking a writ to direct the Chennai Police Commissioner to register an FIR against the then Inspector of Police, Esplanade police station, and such other officials who had “instigated and conspired” to prepare an incorrect FIR to the effect that the Inspector came to know of the incident only upon receipt of hospital intimation whereas he himself was present at the scene of crime for over an hour prior to the incident.

In the petition filed by counsel V.Manikandan and N.Vijayabhaskar, the petitioner submitted that throughout the preparatory stage and during the attacks, armed police personnel who had been deployed within 10 feet of the site of the incident, watched the attacks in silence.