Had Muthuramalinga Thevar been alive he would have condemned stone pelting, says HC

Had Pasumpon Muthuramalinga Thevar been alive he would have strongly condemned this brutal act. According to him, bravery sans prudence is brutality, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court has observed.

Acquitting Muthukaleeswaran from Ramanathapuram district, who was sentenced to life imprisonment by a trial court for his involvement in a stone pelting incident that resulted in the death of a man from Kerala, a Division Bench of Justices A.D. Jagadish Chandira and R. Poornima observed that, “It is befitting to point out that any riot or act of violence committed in the name of a leader, without due regard to his true vision or ideology, cannot be justified and shall amount to an insult to the leader’s honour and the very principles he stood for.”

The case of the prosecution was that on October 30, 2012, Abubaker, a farmer from Kerala, his friend Babu and car driver Mohammed were going to Ervadi dargah. At around 8 p.m., when they were going near the TNEB substation at R.S. Madai, five persons pelted stones on the car to mark their protest against the administration following the murder of three persons during Thevar Jayanthi held in the district.

Abubaker suffered serious injuries on his forehead and right eye in the attack. He was rushed to private hospitals in Ramanathapuram. He was then rushed to private hospitals in Madurai. However, he succumbed to injuries on November 6, 2012.

Five persons were accused in the case. The main accused, Marimuthu, died during the trial. The Ramanathapuram Additional District and Sessions Court acquitted three persons — Rajasekar, Nagaraj, and Saravanan. The trial court sentenced Muthukaleeswaran to life imprisonment. Challenging the sentence, the appeal was filed.

The HC observed that the testimonies of witnesses were highly doubtful. The prosecution had failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.

The court observed that though a confession statement was recorded from Marimuthu, no confession statement was recorded from the appellant at the time of arrest. When the confession statement of the appellant was not recorded and no recovery was made based on his confession, the conviction made based inter alia on the recovery of stones was unjustifiable. The court held that the appellant was entitled to benefit of doubt and acquitted him of all charges.

Taking into account that Abubaker, an innocent pilgrim, who had come all the way from Kerala to worship at Ervadi dargah died for no fault of his, the court observed that the melancholic state of his legal heirs had to be considered empathetically and they had to be compensated adequately.

In exercise of powers under Section 396 (2) of the BNSS, 2023, and considering the fact that Abubaker, 50, was a farmer and breadwinner of his family, the court made a recommendation to the Ramanathapuram District Legal Services Authority to pass an award fixing the amount of compensation to the legal heirs of Abubaker under the Tamil Nadu Victim Compensation Scheme, 2013, and forward the same to the Collector, for disbursement of compensation.