NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday upheld the life imprisonment of P Rajagopal, the owner of South Indian hotel chain Saravana Bhavan, for murdering employee, Prince Shantakumar, in October 2001 to marry his wife on the advice of an astrologer.
The bench headed by Justice NV Ramana gave Rajagopal time till July 7 to surrender. The top court's decision upheld the Madras High Court order in 2009 awarding him life imprisonment.
The Madras High Court had enhanced the 10 years rigorous imprisonment imposed by a trial court on Rajagopal and five others to life imprisonment.
The prosecution case before the High Court was that Rajagopal wanted to marry Jeevajothi, the wife of Prince Santhakumar, as his third wife. The accused abducted Santhakumar on October 1, 2001, strangulated him and threw the body down Perumalmalai in Kodaikanal range. The body was found on October 31, 2001.
Rejecting the contentions of the accused, the Bench comprising Justice P K Misra and Justice R Banumathi had observed that if potholes were to be ferreted out from ‘minor’ loopholes in the process of investigation, no prosecution could be possibly found to be free from one or other defect.
“We have no doubt in our mind that other circumstances on record, including the statement of Jeevajothi, which is amply corroborated by her mother as well as certain other documentary evidence showing the presence of the accused in different places near the scene of occurrence, clearly pointed out to only one conclusion that Santhakumar was killed by the other accused on the basis of instructions from Rajagopal…,” the Bench said.
The Bench enhanced the 10-year RI in respect of Rajagopal, Y Daniel, M Karmegam, H Zakir Hussain, V Kasi Viswanathan and N Patturajan to life term, reduced the total fine amount of Rs. 55 lakh imposed on Rajagopal to Rs. 30,000 and confirmed the sentence of three years RI to the remaining three accused C Tamil Selvan, V Sethu and A Muruganandam.