CHENNAI: The Madras High Court’s acquittal of B Chinnasamy, prime accused in Udumalapet Shankar murder case, has raised several eyebrows. Legal experts opined the court had completely missed caste factor by not giving due importance to statements made by Shankar’s wife Kausalya, against her own father.
Former HC judge K Chandru was of the view that the verdict sent out a wrong message to casteist forces. “The court completely overlooked strong evidence provided by Kausalya’s statements,” he said. Her state of mind ought to have been considered from two angles –before and after she witnessed Shankar’s murder.
“The courts have to take into consideration the overall circumstances that led to the murder, by giving due importance to the caste issues between two groups,” he stressed.
The acquittal was only setting a wrong precedent in such honour-killing cases, opined Kiruba Munusamy, founder of Legal Initiative For Equality. “It is an institutional problem that discriminates Dalits and their lives,” she added.
“Appellate courts can exercise discretion over anything. Courts should not apply the same yardstick in other cases,” she remarked. There was a need for reforms in how these cases were being investigated and dealt with, she said, and hoped that an appeal against it at the Supreme Court could set the course for the same.
However, former HC judge D Hariparanthaman opined it was difficult to establish a conspiracy theory, generally. The court will go by the evidence, and in this case, the court found gaps in the evidence produced against the accused, he said. “When we look at history, there are only a handful of cases where the conspirator is linked to murder (by adequate evidence), and most of them also get acquitted in subsequent appeals,” he added.