Madras HC suspends Vaiko's one year jail term in sedition case

On an appeal filed by him, Justice P D Audikesavalu suspended the one year-sentence ordered by the Special Court for MPs and MLAs cases on July 5, till the disposal of the appeal.

The court, however, refused to impose conditions to restrain him from making such speeches against the sovereignty of the state as sought by public prosecutor A Natarajan, but instead asked Mr Vaiko's counsel G Devadoss to advise his client to be responsible while making public speeches.

Mr Vaiko had on July 13 moved the High Court a week after the Special Court awarded him one year jail term and a fine of Rs 10,000 on him.

In his plea, Mr Vaiko contended that his conviction by the trial court was perverse in that reliance were made on the facts which were not proved by any evidence or even by materials produced before the court, but based on personal view of the special judge.

The special court trying criminal cases against elected MPs and MLAs had on July 5 found Mr Vaiko guilty under Section 124(A) (sedition) of the IPC and awarded one year jail term.

Judge J Shanthi later suspended the operation of the sentence and granted one month time for Mr Vaiko to appeal against the sentence.

Mr Vaiko was slapped with a sedition case by the then DMK regime after he made some remarks during the launch of his book 'I accuse you'.

Cases under sections 124 (a) (sedition) and 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, place of birth, residence, language) of IPC were slapped against him for supporting the outlawed LTTE.