The Madras high court on Thursday upheld the death sentence awarded by a lower court to three All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam functionaries in the Dharmapuri bus burning case in which three college girls were burnt to death in 2000.

Dismissing the appeals filed by the accused, justices D Murugesan and V Periakaruppiah upheld the February 16 order of the Salem first additional district and sessions judge convicting and sentencing Nedu alias Nedunchezhiyan, the then Dharmapuri town secretary of AIADMK, Madhi alias Ravichandran, MGR Forum functionary, and P Muniappan, former Panchayat president to death.

The high court also upheld the lower court order convicting and sentencing 25 other accused to seven years rigorous imprisonment in the case. But the high court awarded maximum two years sentence to all of them instead of seven years imprisonment pronounced by the lower court on various counts.

The high court ordered that the sentences should run concurrently and not consecutively as held by the trial court. As per the directive of the bench, the 25 accused would undergo two years rigorous imprisonment in this case and dismissed all the appeals filed by the accused. 

The accused were chargesheeted in a case in which a Tamil Nadu Agricultural University bus in Dharmapuri in Salem district was set on fire by AIADMK symathisers protesting a judgement by a special court convicting and sentencing former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa to one year rigorous imprisonment in the Pleasant Stay Hotel case.