New Delhi:
Honor Killing should be a strong measure of punishment, the Supreme Court said on Monday and upheld the sentence of 11 accused for the “drug killing” of a young couple in Tamil Nadu in July 2003.
A bench of Justices Sudhanshu Dhulia and Prashant Kumar Mishra refused to intervene in the Madras High Court’s June 2022 judgment, which retained the sentence and sentence of the accused persons, including two police officers.
The bench said that the victims – Murugson and Kannagi – who were in their early twenty -seventh conditions, were killed by poisoning the full view of the villagers.
The Masterminds and the main criminals of this “Makabre Act” had no one other than the woman’s father and brother, the couple.
The apex court saw the reason behind the murder that Kannagi belonged to the “Vanniyar” community, while Murugasen was a Dalit from the same village in Kudalore district.
The couple secretly married in May 2003.
The bench said in its 73-page judgment, “Therefore, at the root of this crime, there is a deeply entangled caste system in India, and the irony is that this most dishonest work goes in the name of honor-killing.”
Advocate Priyadharni appeared for Rahul Murugson’s family.
“An crime is an act against the state. But an evil and odius crime, as we have just settled, is the ugly reality of our depth caste structure. Honor-Killing, as they are called, should be a strong measure of punishment,” it is said.
The bench gave a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to Murugesan’s family and said that this amount is worth paying the amount to be paid by the Tamil Nadu government.
This amount was reported above and above the amount to be paid by the Sessions Court and the High Court as compensation.
In the role of police officers, the bench said that both of them committed offenses under Section 217 of the IPC and Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 as they ignored their duties and did not register the law to the FIR at first time, which was intended to save the culprits.
Section 2017 of the then IPC has disobeyed the direction of law with the public servant, which with the intention of protecting the person from punishment, or with the intention of protecting from property from property.
The bench said that Murugeson’s family shifted the High Court, which directed the CBI to investigate in April 2004.
Although the incident occurred in July 2003, the test took place only in September 2021.
“Long and disqualified delays that have occurred in the case, the FIR’s residence is fine, on the one hand speaks about the gross disability at the hands of the prosecution, on the one hand the strategy employed by defense on one hand employed by defense on one hand and on the other side the strategy that prosecutes slowly,” said the Wordict.
The hostile bent witnesses were considered one of the major events in the case.
“This incident is not new, in fact it is sad that today there is a common incident in our criminal courts, much for the disappointment and disappointment of the prosecution,” the bench said.
“But then the purpose of a trial court is to go to the truth of the case. Whatever evidence is there before the court, it should be investigated, tested, confirmed (whenever necessary), can finally be given before a decision,” it said.
The bench noted one of the several reasons for the witnesses that the hostile turn was usually a long delay in a test.
“It is unfortunate again but in our country true,” it said, “and it took 18 years to pronounce the verdict in the case by the trial court.”
The court underlined the presence of the “adequate material” placed by the prosecution in the trial court, which was sufficient to prove the crime of the accused beyond a proper doubt.
The bench directed those who surrender to surrender within two weeks to surrender to surrender.
In the case, 13 of the total 15 accused faced in the case were convicted.
11 out of 13 were punished for murder and one of the culprits was awarded the death sentence by the trial court, while the rest were sentenced to life imprisonment. It came on a record that the High Court acquitted the two accused.
Both police officers were also convicted by the trial court and both were sentenced to life imprisonment.
The bench said that the High Court sentenced him to death for a life period.
While the sentence of one of the police officers was revised and his sentence was reduced by two years, the punishment and sentence of the other police was upheld by the High Court.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by NDTV employees and is published by a syndicated feed.)
