TP Murder Case: Kerala government to replace PV Dinesh as State’s Supreme Court lawyer

NEW DELHI: The Kerala government has decided to replace senior advocate P V Dinesh, who represented the state in the TP Chandrasekharan murder case in the Supreme Court during the Pinarayi Vijayan government. Dinesh, a CPI(M) sympathiser, will be replaced by either former Solicitor General Ranjit Kumar or prominent criminal lawyer Siddharth Luthra.

During the Pinarayi Vijayan government's tenure, TP Chandrasekharan's wife, KK Rema, had alleged that the lawyers representing the accused in the murder case and the government lawyers were colluding. After the UDF government came to power, Rema approached the government seeking the appointment of prominent criminal lawyers to represent the state in the Supreme Court. The government subsequently decided to replace Dinesh.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has deferred for three weeks the hearing of the bail pleas filed by seven convicts, including Kodi Suni, who are serving sentences in the TP murder case. The bench headed by Justice Satish Chandra Sharma deferred the hearing.

The accused had sought an early hearing of their pleas, stating that they had been in prison for more than 13 years and seeking bail.
However, K K Rema told the court that she needed more time to respond to the bail pleas. The court subsequently deferred the hearing by three weeks and directed Rema to file her response within two weeks.