MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of the Madras HC on Tuesday acquitted a 49-year-old man who was sentenced to death by a trial court in Sivaganga in April this year on charges of sexually assaulting five minor girls in Sivaganga district in 2024.
Allowing an appeal filed by the man challenging the conviction and death sentence, which had been referred to the high court for approval, a bench of Justices N Anand Venkatesh and KK Ramakrishnan said the man did not receive a fair trial.
Due to denial of effective legal assistance, inadequacy of records regarding cross-examination, procedural irregularities, among others, the trial proceedings have been reduced to a mockery of the constitutional guarantee of a fair trial and have resulted in a grave miscarriage of justice, they opined.
According to the prosecution, the man had lured the victim girls, who were aged below 10 years, to his house by offering them money, snacks and also letting them play video games on his mobile phone, in which he allegedly showed obscene content before committing penetrative sexual assault on them.
However, the prosecution neither proved the charges of penetrative sexual assault, nor did it recover the mobile phone used by the man to ‘lure’ the victims, the judges noted. They also opined that the statements of the victims were not cogent and raised doubts whether they had been tutored by their parents who had previous enmity with the man.
The trial judge also failed to comply with the guidelines laid down by the SC in cases involving capital punishment, they added. Since the prosecution did not establish the guilt of the accused beyond reasonable doubt, they set aside the conviction and sentence imposed on him. But, citing that the victims themselves appear to have suffered at the hands of parents, they refrained from directing recovery of the compensation granted to them.
