Date:05/12/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/12/05/stories/2008120555060500.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

High Court commutes death sentence awarded to youth

Special Correspondent

He will undergo life imprisonment for murdering a nine-year-old girl

The prosecution has not placed any material to prove he was involved in nefarious activities
He gave a lighted candle to the girl before pouring kerosene on her at Ambattur

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has modified the death sentence awarded to a person to life imprisonment for murdering a nine-year-old girl by giving a lighted candle to her and later pouring kerosene on her at Ambattur in March 2006.

The court said the facts would show that the accused, Venkatesan, 26, had murdered an innocent child. It was, no doubt, a heinous and gruesome crime, and he had no excuse to do it. The prosecution had not placed any material before the trial court to prove that he was involved in any criminal case or any nefarious or anti-social activities. It could not be stated that he would be a menace to society. Under the circumstances, it was not the rarest of rare cases that warranted death penalty, a Division Bench of Justices M. Chockalingam and S. Rajeswaran said.

The prosecution case was that Sheeba Elizabeth of Krishnapuram, Ambattur, who was running an orphanage, had engaged Shakeela as a housemaid and Venkatesan as car driver. After both allegedly developed intimacy, Elizabeth warned them. The maid was handed over to her parents.

After she left, Venkatesan gave a lighted candle to Rebecca and poured kerosene on her. Rebecca died later.

The Additional Sessions Court (Fast Track Court), Poonamallee, sentenced Venkatesan to death. The servant maid, cited as the second accused, died pending trial. Challenging the death sentence, Venkatesan filed the appeal.

The Bench held that the entire material would show that it was a case in which prosecution placed sufficient material before the trial court, indicating the guilt of Venkatesan. When the child was taken in the car to a hospital immediately after the crime, she told her mother that it was Venkatesan who had committed the crime. The court had to give much weight to this piece of evidence. The non-mention of those words in the earliest report could not in, any way, take away the truth, so that the contention could not be countenanced.