The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has confirmed the life sentence imposed on seven men from Pudukkottai district by a trial court for killing a man following a dispute over organising ‘annadhanam’ in 2017.
A Division Bench of Justices P. N. Prakash and R. Hemalatha upheld the life imprisonment imposed on the seven accused by the Additional District and Sessions court in Pudukkottai district in 2019. The court was hearing the appeal preferred by the seven men.
The case of the prosecution is that the deceased Chelladurai and the seven appellants were residents of Koothinipatti village. The feud between the families started when Chelladurai was prevented from erecting a flex board during a marriage function.
The feud continued during temple festivals. In 2017, the appellants collected money from the villagers for organising ‘annadhanam’. However, they did not collect money from Chelladurai. After a complaint was lodged, the police advised both the parties to jointly conduct the event.
Tensions escalated over the issue and led to the killing of Chelladurai. The seven accused Rajendran, Chinnadurai, Satheesh, Ramesh, Siva, Radhakrishnan and Jeyakumar were all convicted for the killing of Chelladurai. The court dismissed the criminal appeal preferred by the accused and confirmed the life sentence imposed by the trial court.
