Three convicted in murder case acquitted

A division bench, comprising Justice CT Selvam and Justice N Sathish Kumar, while admitting the criminal appeal moved by the three accused, said, “The evidences informing the presence of the accused at the police station on August 23, 2011, would point to the investigation officer having concluded who the accused are and then gone about gathering evidence in support of his conclusion.” As per the prosecution, Rajkumar @ Kumar (A1), Venkatesan (A2) and the deceased Murthy were engaged in coal loading at the Harbour and Bala @ Balakrishnan (A3) was running a shop in the harbour. Owing to previous enmity between the deceased and the accused, Rajkumar and Venkatesan took Murthy to the lodge in Triplicane where Bala was staying on August 19, 2011. The murder occurred after a drunken brawl. 

A chargesheet was filed and on committal in 2013, the case was tried by IV Additional Sessions Judge before whom the prosecution examined 20 witnesses and marked 42 exhibits and 14 material objects. 

However, the division bench on listing out that the evidences rendered in the case said, “We fail to see how the inquest report could have informed the motive and also the manner of occurrence, when the family members of the deceased were not present at the time of inquest.”