Protect the trial, forget the Jain Commission,'' this is the signal bosses of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) are said to have received from 10, Janpath around mid-1997. By that time, Sonia Gandhi also appears to have dismissed the Commission as a platform for petty politics and was apparently convinced nothing tangible would emerge from the half-baked theories of conspiracy being pursued by it.A vindication for Sonia's volte-face came with the January 28 judgment in Poonamallee, when 26 accused persons including 13 Sri Lankans were convicted for Rajiv Gandhi's assassination. The day of reckoning came almost four years after the trial began on January 19, 1994, and during the 700 workdays in the high-security designated court, unfolded a court drama which was unprecedented for the scope of the investigation and its political ramifications.
Since the assassination trial was held in-camera (except for the early weeks), much of the behind-the-scenes goings on of the judicial marathon remain hithertounknown. And perhaps, even more poignant than the picture presented by the defence lawyers of the accused women, Nalini and Padma, breaking down and weeping when the judgment was announced, was the report in March last year of the SIT's Chief Investigating Officer (CIO), K. Raghothaman, collapsing in court after facing 47 days of cross-examination by defence lawyers. Once Raghothman recovered, he was grilled for 20 days more.
SIT officials claim that even more daunting than the task of collecting evidence in a ``blind'' case was the challenge of bringing witnesses from Sri Lanka to give evidence against a dreaded militant outfit like the LTTE. The CBI assigned a team of 65 officers to the case and when the charge-sheet was filed on May 20, 1992, there were 1,014 witnesses cited (three more were added later). Of them, 70 were put in the secret category and their names do not, till date, appear in any court proceedings.
The Sri Lankan Government, SIT sources say, had been extremely helpful in tracking downthese witnesses and dispatching them to India for recording evidence. Many of the unnamed witnesses are said to have travelled from Jaffna and other districts of Sri Lanka for the trial.
Besides their crucial testimony, the SIT listed evidence in 27 categories, like photographer Haribabu's camera and films which helped in establishing the chain of conspiracy between Sivarasan, Subha, Dhanu and Nalini as well as pieces of the improvised explosive device and the pellets used by the human bomb for the assassination. Video cassettes of the ``dry run'' conducted by the LTTE during a May 1991 election rally addressed by V.P. Singh and thousands of photographs seized from the hide-outs of the LTTE were also part of the evidence marshalled.
In the week following the Sriperumbudur killing, members of the SIT were stalking the gang, carrying with them cyanide anti-dote and a doctor to prevent suicides, for which the dreaded LTTE is famous. Some cadres were captured alive along with their cyanide pills. One,Kulathan, was treated with the anti-dote but he survived just for three days and during that trying time, remained in coma.
In all, the SIT ``lost'' 12 suspects, of whom 10 were Indians. The most grievous loss was that of the ``one-eyed Jack'' or Sivarasan, who consumed the bitter pill even as the SIT was set to raid their hideout in the outskirts of Bangalore. Today, SIT officials claim that since the identity of Sivarasan had been established through DNA finger-printing, he had no more use for them. The suicides, in fact, confirmed that the suspects belonged to the LTTE.
The DNA experts -- who had collected samples of Sivarasan's mother, Sivapakkam and brother Ravichandran from Colombo, to establish his real identity as Pakiachandran -- incidentally were among the 11 categories of scientific experts used by the SIT. The others were ballistic experts, photography experts, super-imposing test experts, bomb experts and handwriting experts.
With so much evidence and an impressive line-up of witnesses,why did the trial drag on for four years? The principal reason, SIT sources say, were the dilatory tactics used by the accused and their counsel. The 26 accused persons took eight months to pick their lawyers and subsequently, tried to bring the trial to a grinding halt for every possible excuse.
For instance, the accused filed a petition in the High Court for removing a fibre-glass partition erected in the visitors hall. On another occasion, the defence lawyers decided to boycott the proceedings when a sensitive, coded witness was being examined: their plea this time was that they should be given fees at par with that of the special prosecutor.
A total of 459 petitions were counted till the verdict was announced. Of them 422 were dismissed by the designated court, 33 by the High Court and four by the Supreme Court. There was no pending petition at the time the verdict was announced. With judgment day behind them, SIT officials now confess that a major hurdle faced by them were the ``parallel''proceedings being conducted by Justice M.C. Jain in New Delhi.
Known to few, the trial in Poonamallee came to a standstill on several occasions because of the plea taken by the accused that Justice Jain was unearthing a sensational new conspiracy and therefore they were being unjustly tried. The plea that charges should not be framed against them since the SIT had submitted itself for scrutiny before the Jain Commission was taken by the lawyers as early as July '92.
About a year later, Nalini, a principal accused, filed a petition alleging that the SIT had destroyed the relevant documents and had doctored evidence to book them. She had said that she wanted to appear before the Jain Commission. While her petition was dismissed, the SIT-versus-Jain Commission line was quickly picked up by lawyers appearing before Justice Jain. Sources say that so carried away was Justice Jain with his mission, that officials in his team even began a correspondence with, at least, one of the accused persons.
Now that theverdict in the assassination case has come well before Justice Jain submits his final report, at least the fear of the trial being vitiated and dragging on interminably, has ended.
Rajiv trial in numbers
Persons injured................................ : 44
Persons killed ................................ : 18
Persons questioned............................. : around 5,000
Statements recorded............................ : around 1,000
Documents translated............................: approx. 7,000
Video cassettes examined....................... : 450
Persons chargesheeted.......................... : 41
Persons who faced trial........................ : 26
Working days during trial...................... : 700
Witnesses cited................................ : 1,017
Witnesses examined............................. : 288
Secret/coded witnesses examined.................: 70
Material objects presented................... ..: 1,984
Number of documents............................ :907
Number of charges...............................: 251
Miscellaneous/interlocutory petitions filed.....: 459
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
