MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Friday issued notice to four persons who were recently sentenced to death by the II Additional District Sessions Court for PCR Act Cases in Tirunelveli for murdering three Scheduled Caste men near Thiruvengadam in 2014.
A bench comprising Justices CV Karthikeyan and R Poornima gave the direction after the said death penalties were referred to the high court for approval.
The judges also sought to know if any of the four convicts - Ponnumani, Gurusamy, Muthukrishnan, Kaliraj - had preferred appeals against the conviction and sentence. The case was adjourned to November 11.
(It may be noted that whenever trial courts impose death penalty, they should refer the same to the concerned high court for approval, and such cases are called 'Referred trial' cases. Death penalties can be executed only after the high court's approval even if the convicts do not challenge the trial court's verdict.)