New Delhi: In yet another reiteration by the court that possession of literature doesn’t prove any association with a banned organisation, a district court in Karnataka acquitted an Adivasi youth who was arrested in 2012. The case of Vittala Malekudiya is particularly bizarre as the Karnataka police had arrested him, a 23-year-old journalism student, and his father Lingappa Malekudiya on charges of having links with the Communist Party of India (Maoist) on the basis of books seized from Vittala’s hostel room. Both were charged with charges of sedition and terrorism under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The list of allegedly incriminating literature also included a book by Bhagat Singh, apart from “a letter seeking boycott of Parliament polls until his village gets basic amenities, and clippings of newspaper articles”, the Indian Express reported.
Vittala, now 32, is a journalist with a leading Kannada daily, and his 60-year-old father lives in Kuthloor village near the Kudremukh National Park in Dakshina Kannada district.
Observing that the material seized by the police were articles “required for day-to-day livelihood” of the accused persons, the court said that the police has failed to show any Naxal links of the father-son duo. by an anti-Naxal unit of Karnataka Police has been acquitted by a district court — after police failed to show any Naxal links of the duo.
“Possessing books of Bhagat Singh is not barred under law…the reading of such newspapers is not barred under law,” the court said, while quashing the sedition charge against them.
“None of the witnesses have stated that the accused No.6 and 7 have committed the offence of sedition. There is no evidence on record to show that the accused No.6 or 7 by their words or by signs or by visible representations or otherwise, brought or attempted to bring in hatred or contempt or excited or attempted to excite disaffection towards the Government,” the court said.
The duo were arrested on March 3, 2012 from their home after the police reportedly got a tip-off from one of its senior officers that the Malekudiyas were assisting five wanted Naxals operative in Kudremukh forests. They were subsequently charged with criminal conspiracy and sedition under the IPC and terrorism under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
More importantly, the five ‘Naxals’ named in the FIR were never arrested.
Speaking to the Indian Express, Vittala said, “I am very happy to be acquitted in this case. We struggled for nine years and fought hard to get this acquittal. We were framed as Naxal extremists but there were no points in the chargesheet to indicate these charges. Our innocence has been proven.”
“We attended every court hearing. Even during Covid, we would stand outside court on some days. It was very hard for us to commute from our village to Mangalore for hearings. We had to be in court before 11 am and there were no buses from near our village,” he said, adding that his counsel Dinesh Hegde Ullepady helped them attend some of the hearings during the pandemic on WhatsApp video calls.
Belonging to the Malekudiya Adivasi community which is mostly dependent on forest produce and subsistence agriculture, Vittala was in the second semester of Mangalore University’s journalism graduate programme. He was kept in prison for almost four months in 2012 before the father-son duo got bail following the police’s failure to file a chargesheet in the case within the 90-day stipulated period. During this period, Vittala had to run between courts to seek special permission to write his exams.
“I was taken in handcuffs to the exam and this created a controversy at the time,” Vittala, who completed the course in 2016, said. He eventually got a job in a Kannada daily newspaper in 2018.
Ullepady, their counsel, said that the police themselves admitted in the court that the seized materials were “household articles”.
“We made a prayer to the district court for an honourable acquittal and not just an acquittal. Honourable acquittals are given when police have filed a false case and the honour of the arrested person has to be restored. The district court has given only an acquittal and we will approach the High Court for an honourable acquittal,” he said.
The third additional district judge for Dakshina Kannada, B.B. Jakati, while acquitting the duo said that the police failed to establish any incriminating evidence against them despite claiming that the three mobile phones seized from them could establish their connection with the Naxals.
“The CDR of these mobiles have not been produced. Even during the course of trial, the prosecution has not shown the incriminating evidence available in original mobiles seized…mere seizure of mobiles from the custody of accused or at their instance would not help the case of the prosecution in any manner,” the court said.
As far as the letter that called for a boycott of elections, the court said that “the student of journalism” wrote such a letter “because the leaders have not fulfilled long standing demands of the tribal people of Kuthloor village”.
“On reading it can be easily stated that such letters contain demands of local people,” Judge Jakati said in his order, adding that the 23 prosecution witnesses could not support the police’s claims.
The court said that there was no evidence to prove that they were either members of a Naxalite group or assisting Naxals in their activities.