‘Honour killing’: HC commutes death sentence awarded to couple

MADURAI

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday set aside the death sentence awarded to a couple by Tirunelveli Sessions Court, which had found them guilty on a charge of hacking a Dalit woman to death in 2016.

A division bench of Justices S. Vimala and T. Krishnavalli, hearing a referred trial from Tirunelveli Sessions Court, commuted the death sentence awarded to Sankaranarayanan, the main accused, to imprisonment for life and set aside the sentence of his wife Chellammal. The sentence awarded to Sankaranarayanan under the SC/ST Act was confirmed.

The court held that though the murder was cruel, the case did not fall within the ambit of the rarest of rare cases. With the mitigating circumstances outweighing the aggravating circumstances, the court took a holistic view and modified the sentence imposed on the accused.

The court directed that it would not interfere with the compensation ordered by the sessions court and directed that a sum of ₹8,25,000 be paid to the victim’s family and ₹11,600 per month be paid to the son of the victim until he attained 21 years of age or completed graduation.

Tirunelveli Sessions Court Judge A. Abdul Kadhar, in January 2017, sentenced both Sankaranarayanan and Chellammal to death on the charge of murdering the Dalit woman, S. Kalpana, terming it a case of honour killing. Kalpana had a one-and-a-half-year-old son at the time of her death.

The daughter of Sankaranarayanan and Chellammal, Kaveri, and the elder brother of Kalpana, Viswanathan, had fallen in love. They eloped and got married. The caste Hindu couple were constantly visiting the family of the victim demanding the return of their daughter. Agitated by not being able to trace their daughter, Sankaranarayanan hacked Kalpana to death at her home.