Following the judgment of the Gurgaon trial court on Friday in the Maruti Manesar workers case, acquitting 117 workers of all charges, convicting 18 workers only for grievous hurt and trespass and 13 workers for murder, the workers’ legal defence team said it would put up a “strong challenge to their conviction in appeal before the High Court.”

Writing on her Facebook wall, senior advocate Vrinda Grover, who is part of the team that includes senior advocates Rebecca Mammen John and RS Chema, said the judgement had “unequivocally demolished the foundation of the prosecution case”.

“The legal defence team for the Maruti workers is confident of mounting a very strong challenge to their conviction in appeal before the High Court. The judgment vindicates our stand that a very large number of workers were falsely implicated to prejudice the public opinion and project an exaggerated and alarming version of the incident,” she added. Alleging that the 13 workers who had been convicted had been “implicated” for fighting for their rights, Grover said: “What is important to understand is that these 13 are the office bearers of the Union and the main leaders. They have been implicated in the case and management witnesses have deposed against them because they stand for rights of workers.”

While regretting the loss of life of an HR executive in the fire at the Manesar plant in July 2012, Grover said there was less than tenuous evidence to link any of these 13 workers to the fire. She also questioned if the police officers concerned would be held accountable for the “incarceration that these 117 workers suffered for over two years in jail?”

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