MADURAI: The Madurai bench of Madras high court on Wednesday set aside the death sentence awarded to three men by a trial court in Theni for the rape and murder of a minor girl five years ago. In an embarrassment for the police, the court also cleared the three of all charges and noted that this was a classic case in which the accused were deprived of quality legal assistance, resulting in them being sentenced to death.

"The evidence in this case is too fragile to confirm a conviction, much less to uphold a death sentence," a division bench of Justices P N Prakash and B Pugalendhi noted when the death sentence awarded by the trial court came for a referral.

The mahila court in Theni had handed out the death sentence to the three men in October 2018. The girl, who went missing from her home on December 1, 2014, was found dead the next day. The three, all residents of Kamatchipuram near Uthamapalayam in Theni district , were arrested on December 4. When the death sentence came for referral, the high court bench noted from the records that the DNA evidence could not be determined from the vaginal swab and the underwear with seminal samples of the accused sent to the state forensic lab. At the onset, the court said that there was no scientific evidence to connect the accused with the crime.

On further perusal of the records, the court noted that the entire prosecution case rested on eyewitness accounts of those who were either related to the victim or were panchayatdars (village heads). The court expressed surprise as to why the eyewitnesses never inquired with the accused directly when the girl went missing to know about her whereabouts and gave their statements only after police took over investigations. "Just because the witnesses saw one of the accused talking to the girl does not mean that the trio abducted, raped and murdered her," the court noted and said that the witnesses' statements were unreliable.

The court also noted that though the girl belonged to a scheduled caste, it was the continuous stand of the accused that false cases were foisted on them due to caste rivalry in their village. "We are merely referring to the defence taken by the accused," the court said. The court also directed the state government to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh to the mother of the victim girl.

