TAMIL NADU HONOUR KILLING CASE Father acquitted, death sentence of 5 set aside by HC
The Madras high court on Monday acquitted a death row convict and commuted the capital punishment of five others to life imprisonment in the 2016 honour killing in Tiruppur district where a dalit man was hacked to death in broad daylight. The sensational murder of Udumalpet Shankar was allegedly planned by his wife Kausalya’s father Chinnasamy and others.
Upholding the conviction and sentence awarded to five accused in the, the court, however, modified the death sentence awarded to these accused by the trial court to that of life sentence and directed that they should serve a minimum period of 25 years of imprisonment, during which they will not be entitled to any statutory remission or commutation.
Allowing an appeal filed by Mr Chinnasamy, father of Kausalya, wife of the deceased V. Shankar, challenging the conviction and sentence of death awarded to him by the principal sessions judge, Tirupur, the bench acquitted him of all the charges.
“The appellant/A-1 (Chinnasamy) is acquitted of all charges and the conviction and sentence imposed against the appellant by the Principal District and Sessions Judge, Tirupur dated December 12, 2017 for the offences under section 120 (B), 302 read with 120 (B) read with 109 IPC, 307 read with 120 (B) read with 109 IPC and under section 3 (2) (Va) of SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 2015 are set aside and he is acquitted of all charges leveled against him. The fine amount appropriated by the State as ordered by the trial court, is to be refunded by the State to the appellant. It is made clear that compensation, if any paid out of the said fine amount to PW1 (Kausalya) and the father of the deceased Shankar, shall not be recovered from them”, the bench added.
Partly allowing the appeals filed by Jagadeesan, Manikandan, Selvakumar, Kalai Tamilvaanan, Madan alias Michel, challenging the death sentence awarded to them, a division bench comprising Justices M. Sathyanarayanan and M. Nirmal Kumar commuted the death sentence to that of life sentence.