CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has reduced punishment from five years to three years for an advocate clerk, who was sentenced by a trial court for attempting to kill, and torture his first son over doubts on paternity.
Justice RMT Teekaa Raman observed that the convict Panneerselvam’s relationship with his wife has been normalised and was reformed by doing free legal service to litigants.
Taking the entirety of the circumstances and the normalisation of the relationship between the parties, the court is of the considered view that the sentence be reduced to three years simple imprisonment, said the court. Panneerselvam attempted to murder his first son, causing ‘battered baby syndrome’, due to doubts about paternity. According to the prosecution, after he got separated from his wife, Panneerselvam kept custody of the child and tortured him.