After 11 months of imprisonment, the prime accused in the audiotape scandal case, Nirmala Devi, came out of Madurai Central Prison on bail on Wednesday.
The suspended assistant professor of Devanga Arts College in Aruppukottai was arrested in April 2018 following a complaint from four college girls who accused her of attempting to induce them to do some favours for higher officials of Madurai Kamaraj University in return for higher marks and money. An audio clip on the conversation between the accused and the girls went viral on the social media.
Her advocate, S. Pasumpon Pandian, who received her outside the jail, said that Nirmala Devi had come out of the jail after a prolonged legal battle. “The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court wondered why she was jailed without bail for so long even as murder case accused get bail within 60 or 90 days,” he told the press.
Despite the humanitarian approach of the court that led her to get bail, she could not come out of the jail for a week (after bail was granted) as she faced hurdles even in following the procedures to comply with court order, he charged.