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A court in Kerala has dismissed a review petition filed by the victim of a 17-year-old sex racket seeking to arraign Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman P J Kurien. |
The District Sessions Court in Thodupuzha in Idukki district said there was nothing new in the petition seeking further investigation in the Suryanelli case as all aspects had been looked into earlier, and observed the petition was filed with ill will.
The victim’s lawyer M R Rajendran Nair said his client challenge the order in the Kerala High Court.
The victims went to the Sessions Court after a lower court rejected her petition in March following a claim by the kingpin in the case, S S Dharmarajan, that he took Kurien, then a federal minister, to the schoolgirl who was in a guesthouse in the tourist town of Kumily on February 19, 1996.
The sex scandal took place at Suryanelli in Idukki district in January 1996, when the 16-year-old was allegedly threatened, abducted and abused by a bus conductor and was later confined and sexually assaulted for more than a month by 42 men.
Kurien’s name did not appear in the list of the accused. In the late 1990s the trial court found more than 42 people guilty, who were all later acquitted by the high court except Dharmarajan.
The victim had initially filed a private complaint against Kurien in a court in Idukki district alleging that he had exploited her at the Kumily guesthouse. However, the Supreme Court cleared him.
The case was back in the spotlight after the Supreme Court on January 31 this year ordered, while setting aside the acquittal in 2005 by the high court of the accused. All of them have since been granted bail.