CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has advised trial court judges not to link criminal activities with certain communities, such as ‘Irular’ and pass adverse verdicts.
A division bench of justices S Nagamuthu and N Seshasayee said this while reversing the orders of District Sessions Judge-II in Kancheepuram awarding life imprisonment to all five accused in a robbery and murder case in a temple in 2010 and acquitting them of all charges, last week.
According to prosecution, Kumar and four others entered the Ponniamman temple at Thirumangalam Kandigai village in Kancheepuram district on the night of January 2, 2010, broke open the ‘hundi’ (offertory box) and robbed `500. On hearing the noise one Subramani, who used to sleep in front of the temple, tried to raise an alarm.
The accused attacked him with a wooden reaper and crowbar, resulting in his instantaneous death.
The Sunguvarchathram police registered a case and the trial court awarded life imprisonment to all the five, belonging to Irular community, on July 31, 2015. Hence, the present appeal from four accused, except Kumar.
After going through the judgment of the trial judge, the bench wondered as to how he could presume that the people belonging to a particular community will traditionally indulge in the commission of a particular type of crime.
It is also shocking to note that he had the strong conviction that the particular community people would indulge in a particular type of crime and the same could be inherited like a family trade. It is not also understandable as to how the trial court would come to a conclusion that the traditional occupation of the people belonging to that particular community was stealing.
Assuming that during the primitive period, the people belonging to that community were indulging in thefts, it is ridiculous on the part of the trial court to conclude that in the instant case, these accused had committed murder and robbery because they belong to the said community. “Judiciary cannot afford to decide the cases by tracing the criminal activities of the forefathers of the accused. No court of law can stigmatise a community as a whole,” the judges said.
Proof beyond reasonable doubt of the guilt of an accused should be reached on the basis of the evidence on record.
Any finding of guilt based on no evidence but on communal considerations is unconstitutional. In the instant case, the trial court has traced the socio-economic as well as the communal background of the accused and has come to a conclusion that these accused have committed the crime solely because they belong to a particular community.
The case is a classic example as to how a court of law should not pen down a judgment. “In our little experience, we have not come across this kind of worst judgment. Let this be the last judgment ever written on communal consideration,” the judges said and ordered the acquittal of the accused.
The bench also directed the Registry to circulate copies of the judgment to all Principal Sessions Judges in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry to impress upon them that in future there be no judgment based on extraneous considerations like communal and social background.