HC upholds lifer for man who killed teen after her kin refused wedding bid

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has upheld the life sentence awarded to a man for murdering a minor girl who was studying in Class 12 after her parents said they would consider marrying her off only after she completes schooling.

A division bench of justices PN Prakash and RMT Teekaa Raman delivered the order while dismissing the appeal, for want of merits, filed by Jayaraman who was sentenced to life by the Mahila Court in Thiruvallur, in December 2018, for murdering the 17-year-old girl by inflicting 32 cut injuries.

Jayaraman, a distant relative of the girl, went to her house at Manali Pudunagar on March 16, 2014, and demanded that her parents get her married to him. However, her parents Inbaraj and Krishnaveni, hailing from Thoothukudi, refused.

The division bench declined to hold the argument of the defence counsel that the case was based on circumstantial evidence and disapproved of the contention that witnesses did not try to apprehend the convict fleeing from the crime scene.

On the argument that there were contradictions in the statement and testimony of the girl’s mother, the judges noted that any contradictions between the testimony of the witness in court and the previous statement under Section 164 CrPC can only be established only via the procedure set out in Section 145 of the Evidence Act, which has not been done in this case.

It also brushed aside the theory that both of them had decided to end their lives by suicide, saying it sounds ‘gibberish’ given the fact that the deceased had suffered 32 cut injuries. “Therefore, this defence defies credulity and common sense,” the judges stated.