justices A D Jagadish Chandira and R Poornima observed that the act of the convict, Lakshmanan alias Suresh, though gruesome and unjustified, would not fall under the ‘rarest of rare case’ category and therefore does not warrant imposition of death penalty.

MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court has commuted the death penalty imposed on a man for murdering his cousin in Pudukkottai in 2021, to ‘life sentence till the remainder of his natural life.’

A bench of justices A D Jagadish Chandira and R Poornima observed that the act of the convict, Lakshmanan alias Suresh, though gruesome and unjustified, would not fall under the ‘rarest of rare case’ category and therefore does not warrant imposition of death penalty.

“There is nothing on record to show that the appellant is either a menace to the society and is not possible for reformation,” they noted. Considering the mitigating factors like absence of prior criminal antecedents, possibility of reformation and the satisfactory conduct of the convict in custody, the judges passed the above order.

Lakshmanan is the maternal cousin of the deceased Logapriya. On April 27, 2021, Lakshmanan had gone to Logapriya’s house to borrow money. Logapriya had informed her mother and husband of his arrival since she was alone in her home.

However, when her mother returned home in the evening, she found Logapriya lying dead in a pool of blood. Based on a complaint, the Pudukkottai Ganesh Nagar police registered a case and filed a charge sheet against him alleging that he had stabbed Logapriya for refusing to lend him money.

On April 30, 2024, Principal District and Sessions Court, Pudukkottai found him guilty, imposed the death penalty and the judgement was referred to the high court for confirmation. Meanwhile, Lakshmanan filed an appeal before the HC challenging the conviction and the punishment.

He claimed that Logapriya was murdered by her husband and he was innocent. But the judges noted that Lakshmanan had made this claim before the trial court for the first time three years after the occurrence, which showed that it is only an afterthought and nothing short of a ‘cock and bull story’.

They also opined that though the case may be based on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution has proved the case beyond reasonable doubt and upheld the conviction. However, they also added that the murder was not a premeditated one and had been committed in a fit of anger.