Rajya Sabha deputy chairman PJ Kurien finds himself in the dock again in the Suryanelli serial rape case with the Kerala high court on Thursday having referred to a division bench the petition filed by the victim questioning its single bench order in 2006 discharging the senior Congress leader from the case

The victim told the court that she had not been heard by the single bench before granting relief to Kurien. Convinced that she had been denied natural justice, justice Bhavadas has referred her petition to a division bench.

The victim’s counsel MR Rajendran Nair said the Supreme Court order directing the High Court to re-examine its decision acquitting all but one accused in the case convicted by the trial court gave an opportunity to challenge the order favouring Kurien. The High Court, however, had dismissed her petition in October this year challenging the trial court order refusing her request for a fresh inquiry into the case including Kurien in the light of the disclosure by the sole convict in the case V Dharmarajn to a Malayalam news channel that, he had taken Kurien to her in his car to a guest house at Kumaly in Idukki district where Kurien raped the victim.

Dharmarajan had made the disclosure while hiding in Karnataka after breaking out of the prison years ago while serving a jail term in the case. He later retracted his statement in the court. According to the prosecution, the victim belonging to the remote village of Suryanelli in the hilly Idukki district was abducted and raped by over 40 men for over a month at various places in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in January 1996.