Burning with desire to marry the wife of his employee, P Rajagopal, the owner of Saravana Bhavan – the popular global South Indian eating joint, committed the unthinkable by getting him eliminated in 2001, for which he will now remain in jail the rest of his life.
Out on bail since 2009, the Supreme Court while dismissing the appeal of Rajagopal and four others, directed him to surrender before the concerned court on July 8, 2019 after his counsels requested the Court some time for the ailing 72-year old Rajagopal to arrange his business before surrender.
The bench of Justices NV Ramana, Mohan M Shantanagouder and Indira Banerjee allowed the request and granted a not-so-usual surrender period of over two months for the septuagenarian. But on the merits of the case, the Court was unsparing as every argument made by the lawyers of the millionaire businessman to escape punishment was negated.
The victim Santhakumar worked as an employee of Sarvana Bhavan. His wife Jeevajoti became the object of lust of Rajagopal, who already had two wives. Either upon the advice of an astrologer or acting as a besotted lover, Rajagopal went out of the way to win the heart of Jeevajoti and wished to marry her. To win her heart, the accused helped her family financially, showered her with expensive gifts, costly jewellery and sarees and event paid her medical bills. He wanted her to leave Santhakumar and even advised her not to have sexual relations with her husband. But Jeevajoti did not fall in Rajagopal's net and remained loyal to her husband.
In October 2001, the couple was kidnapped and later brought to the accused who threatened to get the husband killed. Later that month, the duo approached police to register their complaint and begged Rajagopal to spare them. On October 26, the accused arranged men to eliminate Santhakumar. He was strangulated and his body dumped in Tiger-Chola forests in Kodaikanal.
All this while, Jeevajyoti was unaware of the fate of her husband. The accused made her perform many rituals in the temple, which she realized are performed by a widow whose husband is no more. It was then she sensed danger to her husband and filed a complaint on November 20, 2001 accusing Rajagopal of murdering her husband. Sadly, before the police could begin probe, the victim's body had already been buried as an unidentified deceased at the Hindu burial ground of Kodaikanal Municipality. This, after two forest guards discovered Santhakumar's body lying in the forest on October 31.
It was the confession of one of the persons who committed the murder that led the police to the forest. He spilled the beans on the entire plot. Fortunately, police recovered a bill from the nearby petrol pump showing that the vehicle used in the crime filled fuel at the said pump. The police conducted post-mortem and using superimposition, traced the identity of the body to be that of the victim. Later, seeing the photos shown by the forest guards, the victim's wife identified the body to be that of her husband.
The lawyer of the accused doubted the identity of the victim in the absence of DNA test. But the bench was convinced that the Madras High Court order of March 19, 2009 made no mistake to convict the accused and to alter trial court's punishment of 10-year prison to life term.