Tuesday 23 September 2008

Joint Trial Ordered

As the starting point of all our cases is the assault on Jayashree, we felt that it would be better if our cases O.S. No.668/2002 (pending before I Additional Musif, Pondicherry) and O.S. No.409/2005 (pending before Principal District Munsif, Pondicherry) could be jointly tried to meet the ends of justice. We had suffered enough and realized the chaos the trustees created through their misrepresentations and irrelevant documentation in order to clog the proceedings and confuse the issues. Therefore we decided to file a transfer petition for conducting joint trial.

T.O.P. No.85/2007 was filed before the Principal District Judge, Pondicherry for transferring O.S. No.668/2002 from I ADM to be tried together with O.S. No.409/2005 at PDM. The trustees at first refused to appear and were set exparte. When directions were issued in C.R.P. No.3314/2007 for the orders to be passed in the pending T.O.P. trustees filed a petition to permit them to present their objections. Their petition was allowed but the trustees were fined. Ashram Trust and four trustees, (Veda Prakash Johar excluded) was fined Rs.75/- each for failing to respect the court and from abstaining to appear. Trustees paid Rs.375/-. Veda Prakash Johar remained exparte since the trustees had illegally taken away his trusteeship.


On 23.09.2008 order was passed in T.O.P. for joint trial.