Chennai: Holding that the prosecution had failed to prove the motive for a multiple murder, the Madras high court has modified the lower court’s order of death sentence to that of life sentence to an accused.
A division bench comprising Justices M. Jaichandran and S.Nagamuthu, modified the order of the Mahila court in Coimbatore on a referred trial from the state government and an appeal from the accused Selvam.
Selvam was a tenant in a house owned by an old woman in Ramakrishnapuram in Coimbatore. As he vacated the house on May 5, 2014, he demanded the advance amount of Rs 8,500. The landlady after adjusting the rent arrears informed him that she owed only Rs 3,200 and asked him to collect the amount after some time.
On June 1, 2014, when Selvam went to her house and demanded the amount, she informed him that after collecting the advance amount from the new tenant, she would repay the money and Selvam left the house.
However, on the same day evening, the landlady’s daughter Vatchaladevi and her two children were found murdered in the house. On the basis of a statement from a neighbor, an eye witness, the police arrested Selvam.
The Mahila court, which tried the case, awarded death sentence to Selvam. Hence, the present referred trial from the government for confirmation and an appeal from the accused against the death sentence.
The bench said if the aggravating as well as the mitigating circumstances were applied to the case, what emerges was that it was not a case falling within the rarest of rare doctrine. So far as the aggravating circumstances were concerned, the prosecution has failed to prove the motive for the occurrence.
But at the same time, killing of young children, who were sleeping, was brutal and gruesome and the same cannot be tolerated by any man of ordinary prudence.
However, there were also circumstances in favour of the accused like the fact that there was no motive and the case was based on circumstantial evidence, the bench added and modified the death sentence to that of life sentence.
