Madras high court acquits man accused of murdering relative over dispute

MADURAI: The Madras high court has set aside the conviction and life sentence imposed on a man by by the additional district and sessions court in Srivilliputhur in a case where he was accused of murdering his relative over a family dispute in 2016.
The court was hearing the criminal appeal preferred by Seeman (appellant). The case of the prosecution is that Seeman is the maternal uncle of deceased Murugan. Murugan was in love with a woman. When the marriage proposal was underway, Seeman had objected stating that Murugan is an alcoholic and he did not have any permanent job.
Since this resulted in the stoppage of marriage proposal, there was a strained relationship between Seeman and Murugan who had frequent quarrels in this regard.
In February 2016, when Murugan went to a construction site, Seeman and his co-worker Esakkimuthu assaulted him. Murugan, who sustained severe injuries was rushed to the hospital where he died a few days later. The Dhalavaipuram police had registered a case and subsequently arrested Seeman and Esakkimuthu.
In 2019, the trial court had convicted and sentenced both Seeman and Esakkimuthu to undergo life imprisonment for offence under Section 302 (murder) of IPC.
A division bench of justices J Nisha Banu and N Anand Venkatesh observed that there is contradiction between the evidence of the eyewitness and the medical evidence on the manner in which the injuries were sustained by the deceased.
Therefore, a doubt arises about the presence of the eyewitness at the time of the incident. The judges observed that this court had to necessarily come to the conclusion that the prosecution failed to prove the case against the appellant beyond reasonable doubt. Hence, the judges set aside the conviction and life sentence and acquitted the appellant.
Esakkimuthu had filed a separate criminal appeal challenging the conviction of the trial court. Considering Esakkimuthu had died during the pendency of the appeal, the judges closed the appeal.