In a significant legal development, the Madras High Court has confirmed the acquittal of seven individuals accused of being Maoists and undergoing arms training in Kodaikanal forests back in 2008. The court found substantial flaws in the prosecution's case and evidence presentation.
The 2008 Kodaikanal Incident
On April 19, 2008, police personnel received intelligence about suspected Maoists conducting arms training within the forest areas of Kodaikanal in Dindigul district. A special task force immediately launched a search operation in response to this information.
According to official accounts, the suspected Maoists who were hiding in the forest opened fire upon encountering the police team. The police retaliated with counter-fire. During this exchange, Naveen Prasad, one of the suspected Maoists, lost his life, while the others managed to escape from the scene.
Arrests and Initial Legal Proceedings
Following the incident, Kodaikanal police arrested seven individuals suspected of being involved: Kalidoss, Bhagat Singh, Kannan, Reena Jois Mary, Shenbagavalli, Ranjith, and Neelamegam. These arrests culminated in a legal battle that would span over a decade.
In a major turn of events in 2021, the Dindigul Principal District and Sessions Court acquitted all seven accused persons from the case. Dissatisfied with this outcome, the state government filed an appeal before the Madras High Court in the same year, challenging the acquittal.
High Court's Critical Observations
The division bench comprising Justice P Velmurugan and Justice R Poornima delivered a thorough examination of the case. The state prosecution argued that the trial court had failed to consider crucial evidence from the Forensic Science Laboratory that could have proven the death occurred in self-defense rather than being an encounter.
However, the defense counsel for the seven individuals countered these claims, asserting that no actual search operation had taken place in the Kodaikanal hills. They alleged that the police had encountered a person already in their custody and subsequently fabricated a false case against innocent people to conceal this fact.
The bench made several critical observations that ultimately determined the case's outcome. All eyewitnesses admitted the incident occurred in a dense forest area and confessed their inability to identify any of the accused during the actual occurrence. Furthermore, police officials failed to photograph either the occurrence site or the deceased's body for identification purposes.
The court noted that while forest officials allegedly accompanied police during the search operation, none were made witnesses in the case. Additionally, no records existed to prove that blood-stained earth, supposedly recovered from the scene, was ever sent to laboratories for analysis.
In another significant finding, the bench highlighted that some explosives were allegedly stored in a private godown but were never submitted for chemical analysis, for reasons that remained unexplained by the investigating agency.
Final Verdict and Legal Implications
The High Court firmly stated that the prosecution failed to satisfactorily prove the accused's involvement in any prohibited unlawful association. The judges emphasized that merely having pending previous criminal cases against the accused does not automatically establish their involvement in the current case.
Consequently, the division bench dismissed the state's appeal, thereby upholding the trial court's 2021 acquittal of all seven individuals. This ruling marks the conclusion of a 15-year legal battle that began with the controversial 2008 incident in Kodaikanal's forest areas.
