Kochi: The relatives of Anchery Baby have moved the Kerala High Court seeking to make them a party on a petition filed by CPM Idukki district secretary K.K. Jayachandran and CITU leader A.K. Damodaran challenging the Thodupuzha Sessions Court order making them accused in the Anchery Baby murder case. Jayachandran and Damodaran submitted that the decision of the sessions court was illegal. The statement of witnesses had not revealed anything about an alleged conspiracy between the petitioners to commit the offence.
When the final report and the statement of the witnesses did not unearth the alleged complicity of the petitioners, the sessions court went wrong in invoking section 193 of the Criminal Procedure Code to implicate the petitioners as additional accused. When a person is not named in the final report and later directing to implicate him as additional accused, there should be clear nature offence against him. It was on November 13, 1982 that Anchery Baby, a Youth Congress leader, was shot dead. The case, which had been closed earlier, was revived after CPM leader M.M. Mani made a controversial statement claiming that a list of 13 political opponents was prepared to finish them off.
