Allow Cookies!
By using our website, you agree to the use of cookies
On 7/11/2019, the Supreme Court bench headed by Justice RF Nariman, Justice Surya Kant, and Justice Sanjiv Khanna upheld the conviction of the accused and refused to review their verdict in the case Manoharan v State. In the judgment, the apex court unanimously upheld his conviction, but gave a 2:1verdict regarding the form of punishment.
The factual background of the case states that in October 2010, Mohanakrishnan and Manoharan kidnapped a 10 year old girl and her 7 year old brother. The children were escorted to a remote area and the girl child was raped. Immediately after that, both the children were fed poisonous milk to kill them off but due to the small amount that the children took, they didn’t die. Both the accused were arrested after the children were rescued after they were thrown away in the Parambikulam-Axhiyar Project Canal. Of the two accused, Mohanakrishnan died due to a police encounter.
The advocate of the accused argued that a retraction letter shows that the accused stopped the co-accused from committing rape and that the remorse evident should entitle him to a commutation, if not an acquittal. The Court however observed that the retraction was extremely late and a mere attempt to shield himself. Also the medical tests prove that the rape was performed after the girl had been killed, stating that it is “nothing more than a belated lie at the end of the trial.”
The apex court believed that “he present case is essentially one where two accused misused societal trust to hold as captive two innocent school-going children, one of whom was brutally raped and sodomised, and thereupon administered poison and finally, drowned by throwing them into a canal.” Nothing about his entire act showed any signs of remorse or restraint. The crime was meticulously planned and showed no signs of the accused being a victim of any backward socio economic standards. The retraction was only a deliberate decoy with a detailed 11 page written letter addressed to the Magistrate and executed with adequate and expert legal representation. Justice Nariman and Justice Surya Kant sentenced a death penalty and held that “We are of the view that the present offence(s) of the Petitioner are so grave as to shock the conscience of this Court and of society and would without doubt amount to rarest of the rare.”
Justice Khanna on the other hand said “I do not see any good ground and reasons to review my observations and findings in the minority judgment.”
86540
103860
630
114
59824