In what could be one of the final chapters to this episode, the Bombay High Court today rejected the appeals of all the 70 convicted for these riots, including the late Datta Samant. Of these, ten persons, including Datta Samant, are no more.

A division bench of Justice D K Trivedi and Justice D G Deshpande in their verdict also reduced the sentence against one Francis Lawrence Mathais from life to 10 years and held that whatever terms of imprisonment had been suffered by the others convicted, would suffice. All the others have been on bail for the past 22 years.

All the 70 persons who had been arrested in 1972 for the attack had been convicted of the offences in 1977and had been sentenced by the Sessions Court to a period of around three years of rigorous imprisonment. Of these, Mathias had been convicted under Section 302 (murder) and had been sentenced to life imprisonment. All the accused had then filed appeals against the order in 1977. The arguments were heard last week following which the bench changed the conviction of Mathais from 302 to Section 326 (causing grievous harm).

While advocate P H Ponda with Manjula Rao had appeared for the accused, additional public prosecutor P S Singhal with A M Shringarpure had appeared for the state.