Chennai: The XVI Additional City Court has upheld the trial court verdict acquitting 40 persons from charges of entering into a school in Chennai and assaulting a teacher and causing a riot. CCTV camera footage of the incident had gone viral three years ago. During the trial, the teacher, school management, staff and other witnesses turned hostile.
The prosecution said that on November 21, 2014 relatives of a student studying in Class-8 allegedly attacked the physical training teacher S. Baskar in Loyola Matriculation School in Kodambakkam. Angered by the PT master roughing up the 13-year old boy, the mob allegedly attacked him and ransacked the school.
The student’s father Arulanandam, MD of a marketing firm Rich India, allegedly led a gang and caused the riot and damaged school properties after attacking Baskar. Following an outcry, Kodambakkam Police registered cases against 40 persons including Arulanandam, Sebastin, Sundarapandiaraja, Vignesh, Arunagiri, Mahalingam and Varadarajan.
At the time of trial on September 3, 2015 Baskar filed a petition with the police stating that he was not interested in proceeding with the case and wanted to withdraw the complaint of his own. Since the offence was not compoundable, the Magistrate dismissed his plea.
On September 15, 2015 the XVII Metropolitan Magistrate Court, Saidapet acquitted them from the case as the prosecution failed to prove the case. Aggrieved over this, Kodambakkam Police filed an appeal before the XVI Additional City Court on November 6, 2015.
Dismissing the appeal, the XVI Additional City Court, Judge J. Shanthi said in Baskar’s evidence he had stated that he does not know the accused and at the time of occurrence a lot of people came and assaulted him and he does not know the person who assaulted him.
Baskar said the complaint was wrongly given against the accused. The headmistress, who gave a complaint, also stated that she does not know about the occurrence and the accused and at the time of occurrence she was not in the school. Similarly, several prosecution witnesses turned hostile. None of the witnesses stated that these accused had entered the school and caused injuries to Baskar.
The judge said that on perusal of the entire evidence it is evident that there is no incriminating evidence against the accused and that the prosecution had failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.
