The Madras High Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence awarded to three AIADMK functionaries in the infamous Dharmapuri bus burning case in which a college bus of the Coimbatore Veterinary College returning from a study tour was set ablaze with girls inside by an AIADMK mob in February 2000, resulting in the death of three.

Upholding the extreme punishment awarded by the Salem district and sessions court on February 16, a division bench said any sympathy for the convicted would be misplaced as their act was vengeful and heinous.
The court dismissed the appeals of Nedu alias Nedunchezhiyan, the then Dharmapuri town secretary of AIADMK, Madhi alias Ravichandran, former MGR Forum functionary, and P Muniappan, former Panchayat president.
 The court also upheld the lower court order convicting and sentencing 25 other accused to seven years rigorous imprisonment in the case.

It, however, said the sentences would run concurrently and not consecutively as given by the lower court.
The burning of the bus was part of a state-wide violence unleashed by the AIADMK in protest against the conviction of party chief and former Chief Minister J Jayalalitha in the Kodaikanal Pleasant Stay Hotel case by a special court in Chennai on February 2, 2000.

Not peaceful
The High Court bench, citing newspaper reports, said the AIADMK demonstration was far from peaceful.
Before this incident, three government buses were burnt in Dharmapuri.

Even in those cases, the second accused in the current case was also arraigned.

So far as this crime goes, the evidence given by teachers was very clear.

 Relying on this and in accordance with several Supreme Court judgments, “this court feels that this crime belongs to the most heinous genre and is among the rarest of rare cases,” the high court judges said.