MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court converted the life sentence imposed on a murder convict to seven years imprisonment, citing that the injuries he inflicted were not on vital points and that the victim died due to shock.
A division bench of Justices S Vaidyanathan and G Jayachandran passed the order recently in an appeal filed by S Ravichandran of Ramanathapuram. He challenged the order passed by Ramanathapuram Mahila Court in 2018 convicting him of murdering his sister-in-law Murugeshwari.
According to the prosecution, Ravichandran attacked his sister-in-law with a billhook on the evening of August 13, 2013, when the latter along with her husband and children, was on her way to buy groceries. However, the judges observed that the murder was not premeditated, and it was a spur of the moment attack without any intention to cause death.
They also pointed out from the postmortem report that the injuries were caused on non-vital points and the death was due to shock and loss of blood. Therefore, the judges convicted Ravichandran for ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’ and reduced his life sentence to seven years jail term.