Achi news desk-
Supreme Court (photo)
– Photo: ANI
expansion
The Supreme Court bench, while quashing the order of conviction and life imprisonment of two accused in Tamil Nadu’s Balamurugan murder case, said it was shocking that the witnesses in the case had learned a lesson from the police. The Tamil Nadu DGP has also been instructed to take action against the guilty officers.
The Court of First Instance and the High Court ignored this – the Supreme Court
A bench of Justices Abhay S Oka and Pankaj Mittal said that it was surprising that both the trial court and the High Court had ignored the important aspect of witness tuition in the case. The bench, in the order, said that their evidence should be rejected as there was a distinct possibility that the said witnesses had been tutored by the police on The first. Such interference by the police in the judicial process is appalling.
This is a gross abuse of power by the police apparatus – the Supreme Court
The court said in a strong tone that the police cannot be allowed to lecture the prosecution’s witnesses as this is an abuse of brute force by the police apparatus. The bench said that a prosecution witness had admitted that one of the two accused was working in another village called Tirpur and though there were independent witnesses in the case, the prosecution had not examined them.
What does it matter
The judge noted that before the Supreme Court granted bail to the appellants, they had been in prison for over 10 years. The two accused, Manikandan and Shikkumar, were accused of murdering Balamurugan on 4 October 2007. Balamurugan was murdered by Manikandan after a fight over the delivery of idlis to his home.
