Supreme Court: Honour Killing Is Ugly Reality Of Deeply Entrenched Caste Structure; Must Get Strong Measure Of Punishment
|The Supreme Court remarked that at the root of the crime is the deeply entrenched hierarchical caste system in India, and ironically, this most dishonorable act goes by the name of honour-killing.
The Supreme Court in a murder case, has emphasized that the honour-killing must get a strong measure of punishment.
A batch of Criminal Appeals were preferred by the accused persons before the Court, challenging the Judgment of the Madras High Court.
The two-Judge Bench comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and Justice Prashant Kumar Mishra remarked, “We have also looked into the aspect of victim compensation in this case. A crime is an act against the State. But a wicked and odious crime, as the one we have just dealt with, is the ugly reality of our deeply entrenched caste structure. Honour-killing, as these are called, must get a strong measure of punishment. We are also of the opinion that victim compensation here is warranted.”
The Bench noted that at the root of the crime is the deeply entrenched hierarchical caste system in India, and ironically, this most dishonorable act goes by the name of honour-killing.
Senior Advocates Anjana Prakash, Ratnakar Dash, M. Sathyanarayanan, Siddharth Aggarwal, S. Nagamuthu, and Gopal Sankaranayanan appeared for the Appellants while Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Vikramjit Banerjee and AOR Rahul Shyam Bhandari appeared for the Respondents.
Facts of the Case
The case was of a dastardly murder of a young couple who were only in their early twenties, when they were allegedly killed. Both of them were allegedly administered poison in full view of a large number of villagers. It was further alleged that the masterminds and the main perpetrators of this macabre act were none other than the father and the brother of the girl. The reason behind the murder of this young couple was that the girl belonging to the ‘Vanniyar’ community, had dared to marry the boy, who was a ‘Dalit’ from the same village. A total of 15 accused persons had faced trial and the Trial Court had ultimately convicted 13 of them. Amongst them, A-1 to A 3, A-5 to A-8, A-10 to A-13 were convicted primarily under Sections 302 read with 149 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 (IPC). They were all sentenced to life imprisonment, except A-2 who was given death sentence. A-14 and A-15 were the police officers, who were convicted by the Trial Court under Sections 217 and 218 of the IPC and Sections 3(2)(i) and 4 of the Scheduled Castes/Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 (SC/ST Act), and both were sentenced to life imprisonment.
A-4 and A-9 were acquitted by the Trial Court and no Appeal against their acquittal was filed before the High Court. The High Court modified the conviction and sentence of A-14, acquitting him for offences under Section 3(2)(i) of the SC/ST Act and Section 218 of IPC, but maintaining his conviction for offences under Section 4 of the SC/ST Act and Section 217 of IPC, and thus reducing the sentence imposed from life imprisonment to two years of rigorous imprisonment. The conviction of A-15 was upheld and in the case of A-2, the conviction was maintained but the sentence was changed from death penalty to life imprisonment. The High Court also acquitted two other accused, i.e. A-3 and A-13 and the remaining Appeals of all other co-accused were dismissed, and their conviction and sentence was upheld. Before the Apex Court, A-1, A-2, A-5 to A-8, A-10 to A-12, A-14, A-15, challenged their conviction and sentence.
Court’s Observations
The Supreme Court in the above regard, observed, “One of the many reasons for witnesses turning hostile is the long delay usually caused in a trial. This is again unfortunate but true in our country. The present case is no exception. Here, the incident occurred in the year 2003, the case was committed to Sessions in the year 2010 and charges were framed as late as in the year 2017, and the judgment was finally pronounced by the Trial Court on 24.09.2021. It took eighteen years!”
The Court said that the role played here by the accused in delaying the trial cannot be discounted, and that the records also reveal that the depositions of most of the prosecution witnesses were recorded only towards the end of the year 2017.
“… the benefit of such witnesses turning hostile cannot be given to other accused who were found involved in the offence, on the overwhelming weight of other evidence”, it added.
The Court further remarked that the Courts have been given wide powers to decide on their own if a witness is required to be called or recalled for examination or re-examination and such power under Section 311 of the Criminal Procedure Code, 1973 (CrPC) can be invoked at any stage of the trial, even after the closing of the evidence.
“Section 311 CrPC can also be read along with Section 165 of the Evidence Act, as the powers of the Court under Section 165 of the Evidence Act are complementary to Section 311 of CrPC. As discussed above, powers under Section 311 CrPC can either be exercised on an application moved by either side to the case or suo moto by the Court. In case a person is not listed as a witness in the charge-sheet but later, the prosecution desires to bring that person as an additional prosecution witness, then the prosecution can move an application to bring this person as a prosecution witness”, it explained.
Conclusion
The Court, therefore, came to the following points of conclusion –
(a) A-14 and A-15 both had committed the offences under Section 217 IPC and Section 4 of the SC/ST Act as they neglected their duties and disobeyed the law by not registering the FIR at the first instance with the intention to save the culprits.
(b) Like A-14, A-15 too is guilty of offences under Section 217 of the IPC and under Section 4 of the SC/ST Act but, in addition to these wrongdoings, it is also borne out from the record that it was A-15 who was the main architect behind the FIR, which falsely implicated the four members of Schedule Caste community. Further, it was A-15 who was in-charge of the investigation which led to the filing of the chargesheet against the innocent persons belonging to Dalit community. There is no doubt that A-15 did this entire exercise to absolve culprits belonging to the Vanniyar community of their complicity in the crime, and he knowingly and deliberately falsely implicated some of the Dalits in an offence punishable with death. Evidence makes it clear that A-15 manufactured the extra-judicial confessions and evidence and thereafter, filed the chargesheet against Dalits on the basis of that evidence. Hence, the High Court rightly upheld the conviction of A-15 under Sections 217and 218 of IPC and Sections 4, 3(2)(i) of the SC/ST Act and the sentence of life imprisonment. Hence, A-15 is guilty of the offences as held both by the Trial Court as well as the High Court in Appeal.
“We thus award compensation of Rs. 5,00,000/- (Rupees Five Lakhs) to PW-1 (Samikannu-father of Murugesan) and PW-49 (Chinnapillai – step-mother of Murugesan) jointly, or to the nearest of their kins. This compensation is liable to be paid by the State of Tamil Nadu to the above-mentioned persons. We further clarify that this compensation would be in addition to the amount awarded or directed to be paid as compensation by the Sessions Court and High Court”, it also directed.
Accordingly, the Apex Court dismissed the Appeals and directed the Appellants to surrender within two weeks to undergo their remaining sentence.
Cause Title- K.P. Tamilmaran v. The State by Deputy Superintendent of Police (Neutral Citation: 2025 INSC 576)
Appearance:
Appellants: Senior Advocates Anjana Prakash, Ratnakar Dash, M. Sathyanarayanan, Siddharth Aggarwal, S. Nagamuthu, Gopal Sankaranayanan, AORs Raghunatha Sethupathy B, Yusuf, Rakesh K. Sharma, Promila, S. Thananjayan, Ankur S. Kulkarni, Nirnimesh Dube, Advocates S. Prabu Ramasubramanian, Arshiya Ghose, Ashish Raghuvanshi, Pariksha, S. Sabari Bala Pandian, Ram Sankar, Harini Ramsankar, C. Paramsivam, Nishant Sharma, Niraj Dubey, Pradum Kumar, K. Balu, Elavarasan, Karuppaiah Meyyappan, Kanika Kalaiyarasan, and Abhishek Kalaiyarasan.
Respondents: ASG Vikramjit Banerjee, AORs Rahul Shyam Bhandari, Arvind Kumar Sharma, Mukesh Kumar Maroria, Advocates Arkaj Kumar, B K Satija, Rukhmini Bobde, Anukalp Jain, Madhav Sinhal, Rohit Khare, Sunanda Shukla, Ishaan Sharma, Shubham Sukla, Ayush, Aditya Kashyap, G Priyadarshini, Satyam Pathak, Prabhakar Pahepuri, Ratneswar Chakma, and K Kesavan.