KANNIYAKUMARI: The Padmanabhapuram Additional District and Sessions Court has acquitted 18 persons in the Thiruvattar Adikesava Perumal Temple jewellery theft case after it noted the prosecution had failed to prove charges against the accused by submitting proper evidence at the trial court.
The accused had appealed against the trial court (Nagercoil Judicial Magistrate Court-I) conviction order in 2019.
The acquittal order, uploaded on Friday, was passed by Additional District and Sessions Court Judge P Ramachandran on September 9. Judge Ramachandran, in the order, said the prosecution did not prove its charges against the accused by submitting proper evidence at the trial court. “The trial court had not scrutinised both sides’ evidence and documents properly, and decided the case. It was not acceptable,” the defence counsel contended.
The trial court’s conviction and order dated September 19, 2019, are cancelled and the appellants are acquitted, the judge said.
Of the 34 accused, 10 died and one absconded during the trial court proceedings. Nagercoil Judicial Magistrate Court-I Judge on September 19, 2019, awarded jail sentence to all the remaining 23 accused. Fifteen of them, including prime accused Sree Appan alias Sri Ayyappan, were sentenced to six years in jail, while the others were awarded three years.
The prosecution had said that more than six kg gold from the Thiruvattar temple had gone missing since 1974. Though Kanniyakumari district police registered a case, it was transferred to CB-CID on June 17, 1992, which registered the case under sections including 120 B, 409, 411, 414, 114 and 218 of the IPC.
Based on a direction from the Madras High Court, the case was tried at Nagercoil Judicial Magistrate Court-1 since 2011.The 18 acquitted persons (who are alive now) include Sree Appan alias Sri Ayyappan. CB-CID sources had then said the prime accused had colluded with some clergies and cut the gold ‘kavasan and crown’ of the temple deity and fixed the space with an oil tin sheet.