Gurugram, March 10 (IANS): A sessions court here on Friday convicted 31 former workers of Maruti Suzuki's Manesar plant near Gurugram in 2012 but acquitted 117 others for lack of evidence.

Additional District and Sessions Judge R.P. Goel was expected to decide later on the quantum of punishment to the guilty -- put in two categories as per the charges proved against them.

Booked by the police and sacked by the carmaker after the violence on July 18, 2012, none of the 148 jailed workers could secure bail for long. 

It was only on February 23, 2015, that the Supreme Court granted bail to two of the 148 accused. 

The violence had left Maruti Suzuki Human Resource Department General Manager Ashwin Kumar Dev dead and over 50 persons injured. Several policemen were also injured in the melee. 

The violence was triggered on the carmaker's premises after a supervisor allegedly abused and slapped a worker. Services of nearly 2,500 workers, including 546 permanent employees, were terminated after the incident.

Maruti declared a lockout for over a month, suffering loss of several crores of rupees in the process.