MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Tuesday acquitted a suspended sub-inspector of police from Ramanathapuram in a custodial death case, accepting his claim that he opened fire at the deceased in self-defence. A bench of justices G Jayachandran and C Kumarappan passed the order on an appeal filed by Sub-inspector A Kalidass, challenging his life sentence order by a lower court in the case in 2019.
According to the case reports, in 2014, a mechanic, Aruldoss, had lodged a complaint at the SP Pattinam police station in Ramanathapuram against a driver, Syed Mohammed, that the latter attempted to murder him for not handing over a two-wheeler. Based on the complaint, Mohammed was brought to the police station for inquiry.
However, during the inquiry, Kalidass opened fire at Mohammed, leading to his death. The CB-CID filed a chargesheet against Kalidass, and subsequently, the Ramanathapuram district court sentenced him to life on November 14, 2019. Kalidass filed an appeal challenging the sentence. Kalidass claimed that Mohammed was under the influence of alcohol during the inquiry and was trying to assault him with a knife, which is why he opened fire in self-defence. He also denied allegations of previous acquaintance or enmity with the deceased and requested the court to set aside his life sentence.
The bench stated that the reasoning given by the trial court to dismiss Kalidass’ self-defence theory does not appear logical, nor backed by any evidence.
Though several objections were raised regarding how the cop had opened fire at the deceased, the judges rejected them saying, “The contention that the accused cannot measure step-by-step to react to the assault and the apprehension faced by him warrants a spontaneous act of self-preservation, the appellant is entitled to protection under IPC section 100, and it falls under the second exception to IPC section 300 (murder).”