Charges against Vaiko in 2007 case quashed

Justice N Anand Venkatesh before whom the petition came up for hearing on Monday quashed the charges levelled against Vaiko.

As per the case, following the killing of Suba Tamilselvan by the Sri Lankan military in the island nation on November 3, 2007, LTTE sympathiser Pazha Nedumaran organised a procession in Chennai to condole his death. Based on Nedumaran’s invitation various leader including Vaiko assembled near the statue of Thomas Munro on November 12, 2007.

But the police prevented them from proceeding further for want of permission and registered a criminal case against 262 participants. Though the case was booked in 2007 and a charge sheet was laid before a metropolitan magistrate court at Egmore on December 11, 2009, the case had been lying idle with no summons being issued to any of the 262 accused mentioned in the charge sheet.

Vaiko also noted in his plea that he came to know that the charge sheet was filed in the case only when he applied for renewal of his passport in 2015. Immediately, he appeared before the magistrate and had been pursuing the case since them. Yet the prosecution was yet to serve summons on the other 261 accused, the plea said.