Skip to main content

Madras High Court accepts children’s evidence in murder case

The children saw the father killing their mother

They were aged 11 and nine when their mother was murdered in 2009. The whole prosecution case centred around their testimony before the trial court.

Confirming the life sentence awarded to their father for the murder, the Madras High Court said it was accepting the children’s evidence before the lower court.

The prosecution case was that the murder took place on April 6, 2009 when the children, a boy and a girl, were sleeping in their house. Their father, M. George Arul Thangam, hit their mother, Pushpalatha’s head with a grinding stone. Pushpalatha succumbed to injuries.

On September 21, 2010, the Sessions Court, Kanyakumari, sentenced George Arul Thangam to life imprisonment.

Hence, the present appeal by Thangam before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.

Upholding the conviction, a Division Bench comprising Justices S. Rajeswaran and T. Mathivanan, said the testimonies of prosecution witnesses seemed to be unassailable, and they were not tainted with any suspicion. On appreciation of the evidence, the Bench said the trial court had correctly found the accused guilty under section 302 (murder) IPC.

Regarding child witness, Justice T.Mathivanan, writing the judgment for the Bench, observed that the children had unambiguously spoken about the presence of their father at the time of the occurrence and also his culpability in killing their mother with the grinding stone. All that was required in considering the evidence of a child witness was scanning it carefully. If after doing so it was found that there were no flaws in the evidence of a child there was no impediment in accepting the evidence.

The Bench said that in the present case, it did a meticulous analysis of the evidence of the two children. Having scrutinised their evidence, it did not find flaws in it. The court said it was also of the considered view that they were not moulded or tutored prior to their examination.

Article referred: http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/madras-high-court-accepts-childrens-evidence-in-murder-case/article5434003.ece

Comments

Post a Comment

Most viewed this month

Appellate authorities under Special Statutes cannot be asked to condone delay

Madras High Court in R.Gowrishankar vs. The Commissioner of Service Tax has held that Appellate authorities cannot be asked to condone the delay, beyond the extended period of limitation A Division Bench comprising of Justices S. Manikumar and D. Krishnakumar, made this observation while considering an appeal filed against Single Bench order declining to set aside the order made in the condone delay petition filed by the petitioner to condone 223 days in filing the appeal before the Commissioner of Service Tax (Appeals). Article referred: http://www.livelaw.in/appellate-authorities-special-statutes-cannot-asked-condone-delay-beyond-extended-period-limitation-madras-hc/
Post a Comment
Read more

'Seize assets to pay damages to accident victim'

Her story might be an inspiration for the physically challenged but justice has remained elusive for her. In 2008, a bus accident left research engineer S Thenmozhi, 30, paraplegic. In April 2013, the motor accident claims tribunal directed the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation (TNSTC) to provide her a compensation of 57.9 lakh. However, TNSTC refused to budge and on Tuesday a city court ordered attaching of movable assets of the transport corporation. Thenmozhi was employed in C-DOT, a telecom technology development centre in Bangalore. On July 21, 2008, she was coming to Chennai in a private bus. Around 2am, the bus had a flat tyre and the driver parked it on the left side of the road near Pallikonda in Vellore district on the Bangalore-Chennai highway. While the tyre was being changed, a TNSTC bus of Dharmapuri division hit the stationary bus. The rear part of the bus was smashed and passengers were injured. Thenmozhi who had a seat at the back of the bus suffered...
Post a Comment
Read more

Mumbai ITAT rules income of offshore discretionary trust is subject to tax in India

The Mumbai Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) has recently determined the following issue in the affirmative in the case of Manoj Dhupelia: Should the income of an offshore discretionary trust be subject to tax in India, if no distributions have been made to beneficiaries in India? The question arose from appeals filed by individual beneficiaries in relation to a Lichtenstein-based trust, the Ambrunova Trust and Merlyn Management SA (the Trust) with the ITAT. It is important to note that the individuals in this case were amongst those first identified by the Government of India (GOI) as holding undeclared bank accounts in Lichtenstein. The ITAT ruling raises the following issues: Taxation of Trust Corpus: ITAT classified the corpus of the trust as "undisclosed income" and declared it taxable in the hands of the beneficiaries. Taxation of Undistributed Income: ITAT refused to draw a distinction between the corpus and undistributed income from the trust and declared i...
Post a Comment
Read more