CHENNAI: Former Tamil Nadu youth welfare and sports minister Balakrishna Reddy will be behind the bars soon as the Madras high court on Friday refused to suspend his conviction and three years’ imprisonment awarded by a special court -- trying cases against MPs and MLAs -- in a 1998 riot case.Refusing any relief, Justice V Parthiban dismissed the application moved by Reddy seeking to suspend the conviction and sentence till the final disposal of his appeal challenging the January 7 order of the special court.In view of the dismissal, Reddy has to surrender before the jurisdictional court, after which he would be lodged in a prison.When the appeal came up for hearing, Reddy contended that apart from the evidence provided by a prosecution witness, there is nothing else to prove the charges against him. A perusal of the witnesses and evidences would show that all the charges are attributed only against he first accused, Govinda Reddy, and not against the appellant.This apart, the public prosecutor also contended that the appellant alone could not be blamed for the violence as there were many onlookers when the incident happened. Moreover, mere participation in the protest could not make him guilty of the violence.Wondering why the prosecutor was supporting the accused while he was supposed to defend the prosecution, the judged asked whether the public prosecutor was of the opinion that the trial court had erred in its judgement.Answering in negative, the prosecutor said he was submitting only the facts stated in the FIR.On January 7, special court judge J Santhi found Reddy and 15 others guilty of offences under Sections 147 (rioting), 341 (wrongful restraint) of the IPC and Section 3 of the Tamil Nadu Public Property (Prevention of Damage and Loss) Act.

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