Three AIADMK functionaries sentenced to death in the sensational Dharmapuri bus burning case, got a reprieve on Friday with the Tamil Nadu government informing the Madras High Court that the sentence would be carried out only after the disposal of the special leave petition filed by them in the Supreme Court.

When the petition came up for hearing before a division bench, comprising of Justice D Murugesan and Justice V Periyakaruppaiah, public prosecutor Raja Elango told the court that the superintendent of the Coimbatore Jail, where the accused are lodged, had passed an order not to carry out the death sentence till the apex court disposes of their petition.

Accepting the prosecution's plea, the bench disposed of the petition filed by the three convicts, seeking to keep the execution in abeyance for a period of eight weeks.

The lower court had awarded death sentence to the AIADMK workers Neduchezhian, Ravindran and Muniappan in the case relating to the torching of a bus, in which three girl students of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University were burnt to death on the outskirts of Dharmapuri on February 1, 2000, during a state-wide demonstration by AIADMK men following the conviction of AIADMK supremo J Jayalalitha in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case.

The court had held that it was one of the rarest of rare cases deserving the maximum punishment as the agitators did not allow the students to get off the bus before setting it on fire.

A division bench not only confirmed the death sentence awarded to the three, but also the conviction of 25 others to seven years RI.

But the High Court said the sentences would run concurrently, instead of consecutively as held by the lower court, thus reducing their period of imprisonment. The bench dismissed all the appeals filed by the accused. The trial court then fixed the execution for January 10. With the condemned prisoners moving the apex court, the execution has been kept in abeyance.