Court rejects victim's plea for fresh probe against Kurien

The Suryanelli serial-rape victim has suffered a setback in her legal fight to reopen the case against Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien. A local court on Saturday rejected her plea on the grounds that it had already been considered and no situation exists that demands a fresh investigation.

The victim filed a petition for a fresh probe into Kurien’s alleged involvement in the light of the recent claim by Dharmarajan, one of the 36 accused in the 1996 case and the only one to be convicted. The petition filed at the Peermed First Class Judicial Magistrate Court in Idukki district in the afternoon was dismissed within half-an-hour.

While rejecting the petition the first class judicial magistrate held that there was no new ground for a re-investigation since the points raised in the plea had already been enquired into by the police and no evidence was found against Kurien. The petitioner sought a reprobe based on the recent claim by Dharmarajan that Kurien, a Union minister in 1996, had allegedly molested the girl at a guest house at Peermed.

Her counsel said that she would move the High Court against the lower court’s order.
Dharmarajan appeared last month on a Malayalam channel after absconding for several years and levelled the charge against Kurien. He was later tracked down and arrested by the Kerala Police in Karnataka.

The victim recently lodged a complaint with the police at Chingavanam seeking an inquiry into Kurien’s role on the basis of Dharmarajan’s allegation. The police, however, held that a case could be registered only after examining the legal grounds.

The Suryanelli case has been in focus again after the Supreme Court in January quashed the Kerala High Court order acquitting 35 accused in the case while sentencing Dharmarajan to five years imprisonment and ordered a retrial.