Madras High Court upholds life term in unnatural sex case

Chennai: Madras high court has upheld an order of a trial court, convicting and sentencing a convict to life imprisonment for forcibly indulging in unnatural oral sex with a VIII standard boy student and when he refused subsequently, murdered him at Virudhunagar district in 2014.

A division bench comprising Justices R. Subbiah and A.D. Jagadish Chandra confirmed the order of Mahila Court in Viridhunagar convicting and sentencing S. Mareeshwaran for offences under section 450 and 302 IPC.

“Having regard to the nature and magnitude of the offence committed by Mareeshwaran, particularly during broad daylight in the school premises making the other students in the school grip with panic, we direct that Mareeshwaran shall not be released unless he completes 30 years of actual imprisonment without any statutory remission or commutation,” the bench said.

The bench also confirmed the order of the Mahila court convicting and sentencing another accused Maheswaran, who abetted Mareeshwaran in the commission of the offences.

According to prosecution, when Mareeshwaran was studying in the school, where the deceased boy was studying, he indulged in acts of fellatio whereby he forced the deceased to indulge in unnatural oral sex with him to give vent to his pent up lust. After he dropped out from the school in 2013, he frequently disturbed the deceased enroute to school. On knowing this, victim's parents changed the school. But the accused continued to force the deceased to indulge in unnatural oral sex with him.

Subsequently, the boy bluntly refused to accede to his request. Thereafter, when the accused forced the boy to indulge in the same activities by threatening him, the villagers noticed the same, chased him and his friend Maheswaran who accompanied in a motor vehicle and warned them not to come to their village.
Enraged, they bought a knife and Mareeshwaran went to the school and stabbed the boy and murdered him in the class room.

The bench said Mareeshwaran with the active assistance of Maheswaran, murdered the victim. This was clearly proved by the prosecution by examining the witnesses, who have cited the incident that took place in 2013.

Expressing shock and grief over the manner in which a young boy was done to death in a barbaric, inhuman and heartless manner in broad daylight, the bench said, “We are also pained to note that the deceased was gored to death by stabbing him indiscriminately in the classroom and the intensity of the stab is such that the knife could not be retrieved from his temple region and it was implanted there. The knife was ultimately retrieved and handed over to the investigation officer by the doctor, who had done post mortem. The death of the deceased in the blood splattered class room would no doubt send shock waves in the minds of students studying in the school especially when they see the deceased lying in a pool of blood with a knife implanted on his temple region”, the bench added.