The Madras High Court Bench here on Wednesday came down heavily upon a Sessions Court judge for having acquitted a youngster, his father and stepmother from the charge of murdering the youngster’s newly wed wife as she was perceived as a hindrance to an illicit relationship between him and his stepmother.
Allowing a State appeal against the acquittal, a Division Bench of Justices A. Selvam and T. Mathivanan said the presiding officer of an Additional District and Sessions Court in Tuticorin had acquitted the trio on October 19, 2010 “without even knowing the rudimentary principles of law.”
The judges reversed the acquittal and convicted all three. While the prime convict, Ravi, and his stepmother Uma were awarded double life sentence under Sections 320 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code, the third convict, Balasubramanian, was awarded single life imprisonment. Vilathikulam police took the convicts, who were present in court, into custody immediately after pronouncement of the judgement.
Authoring the judgement for the Bench, Mr. Justice Selvam said “the case on hand was of a newly wedded bride who had been brutally murdered even before she could blossom in her marital life… In fact, the allegations made by the father of the deceased in his police complaint and before the trial court have created ripples in the pool of conscience of this court.”
Pointing out that the three convicts had attempted to cover up the murder by claiming that the deceased had committed suicide by consuming poison, the Bench said their version of the story could not be believed in view of the medical evidence clearly proving that there were many ante-mortem injuries on the body and the death appeared to have been caused due to strangulation.
The judges also said the convicts had not explained as to how the deceased suffered those injuries though Section 106 of the Evidence Act categorically stated that in cases of the present nature, the burden of proof lay on the accused.
“Therefore, this court is of the considered view that it was none but the accused who had killed the accused,” the Bench concluded.
