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The Madras High Court on Tuesday granted conditional bail to 25 AIADMK workers who had been sentenced to seven-year jail terms by a lower court for their complicity in inciting mob violence in Dharmapuri in 2000 that led to the death of three girl students.

A special court in Salem district had on Feburary 16 awarded death sentence to the three. They had appealed against the sentence in the Madras High Court.

On Tuesday, a division bench of Justices R Balasubramanian and Prabha Sridevan while granting bail told the accused to stay in Chennai and appear before the Crime Branch of Tamil Nadu police daily.

Their appeal for freedom is being heard in the high court since Monday.

Special Public Prosecutor at the Salem court R Srinivasan had pleaded for death sentence for the three accused, saying this was "a rarest of rare case".

On Feburary 2, 2000, a bus carrying students of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, while returning to Coimbatore from a study tour at Dharmapuri, was set ablaze by an angry AIADMK mob to protest against the jail term awarded to party Chief J Jayalalitha.

The AIADMK supreme was awarded one year's rigorous imprisonment under a Prevention of Corruption Act and accused of criminal conspiracy and misconduct.