Respondents
asked to file replies to appeals by March 27.
The Delhi High Court on Friday
issued notices to 57 people on a bunch of appeals by victims of the Mirchpur
caste violence case in which two persons were killed and 18 houses of the Dalit
community were burnt in the village in Hisar district of Haryana in 2010.
A Division Bench comprising Justices
S.P. Garg and S. Ravindra Bhat asked the respondents to file replies to the
appeals by March 27.
Appellants Kamla, wife of deceased
Tarachand, her son and three others through their lawyers, Anubha Rastogi and
Shreeji Bhavsar (HRLN Lawyers), have sought enhancement of punishment for the 12 accused and
conviction of the three accused who were awarded life imprisonment under the
Scheduled Castes\Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act under Section
302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code as well. The trial court had held a total
of 15 accused guilty in the case.
The appellants have also sought
conviction of the 82 persons acquitted by the trial court for want of credible
evidence. However, the Bench issued notices only to 42 of them saying the
prosecution had not produced sufficient evidence against rest.
Fifteen other notices were issued to
those held guilty by the trial court.
The Special Judge of a designated
Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes court here, Kamini Lau, had convicted the
three accused for culpable homicide not amounting to murder for setting fire to
the house of Tarachand and Suman in which they had taken refuge. They lost
their life in the attack. Six persons were held guilty for setting other Dalit
houses on fire and six others for unlawful assembly and stone throwing.
However, Ms. Lau acquitted them of
the charges of murder, rioting, looting, and criminal conspiracy saying the
prosecution had failed to establish the charges against them beyond reasonable
doubt.
The Special Court had also acquitted
Narnaud Police Station House Officer Vinod Kumar Kajal, one of the accused in
the case, for allegedly exhorting the mob to burn Dalit homes before police
reinforcements arrived and for alleged negligence of duties under the Scheduled
Castes/Scheduled Tribes Act, saying the charges against him could not be
proved.
The case had come to Delhi on a
direction by the Supreme Court on a petition filed by the victims expressing
apprehensions that the trial would not be fair in Haryana as the environment
there was not conducive.
· Two persons were killed, 18 Dalit
houses set on fire in Haryana's Mirchpur village in 2010
· Appellants seek enhancement of
punishment for 12 accused
As reported by Hindu on 25/2/2012
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