HC sets aside lower court order in murder case, pulls up cops

The Madras High Court today set aside a lower court order sentencing to death two accused in a six-year-old quadruple murder case, in which all victims were Dalits, and pulled up police for poor investigation.
Justice M Jaichandran and Justice S Nagamuthu of the Madurai Bench of the high court also ordered Rs 5 lakh compensation to the next of kin of the victims.
The lower court had sentenced Katturaja and Vettumperumal to death (on four counts) for murdering four of a family -- a man, his wife and two minor girls -- on April 19, 2007.
The Additional District and Sessions judge had sentenced them to two life terms under the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and causing death with weapons and slapped a fine of Rs 2.25 lakh on the accused.

Justice Nagamuthu said police have "miserably failed" to properly investigate the case and get the culprits punished.
"If there is slackness on the part of the stakeholders, the end result will be failure of justice. In this case, we confess that it is a failure of justice and the criminals who committed the act did not get punished," the bench said.

The judges said they had given a chance to police to further investigate the case as they were not satisfied with the probe and evidence was not legally acceptable. But Additional Superintendent of Police P Manoharan heading the team had not rectified the flaws pointed out. There were a lot of infirmities in investigation and no improvement in probe.

The judges said it was shocking the trial judge felt the statement of an accused that he had used weapons for crime was admissible evidence.
Normally the sub-inspector's evidence is not rejected in the court. But here the SI had neither identified the murder weapon nor taken steps to do DNA tests. The bicycle of the deceased was not produced as evidence as also a crowbar used to break into the house of the victims.
Holding the investigation should have been done carefully given that four lives were lost, the bench said, "Our belief in police is shattered. We don't have sufficient evidence to hold that the accused are perpetrators of the crime."

The judges said there was a provision in CrPc, 357(a), which enabled the trial court recommend compensation to victims in case of acquittal. This had not been implemented in Tamil Nadu.
The bench recalled that government had assured it during hearing another case on June 6 this year that the victim compensation scheme would be implemented in 45 days. But the Public prosecutor had now stated it was under preparation.
The prosecution case was Katturja had murdered the family as he was angry with Jayakumar over his alleged illicit relationship with his wife.
Katturaja confessed to the murder and the other person surrendered later.