NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, JUN 28
The Madras High Court on Monday reduced to life term, the death sentence awarded by a lower court to a man who had killed four of his close family members including his mother, saying the reduced award will be a “far more severe punishment.”
The court also ruled that the appellant will not be entitled to any statutory remission or commutation until he completes 25 years of actual imprisonment.
“If he is permitted to live, the thoughts of his fiendish act of liquidating his mother, wife and two minor children will haunt him till his last breath, which, in our opinion, is a far more severe punishment, than the death sentence,” a division bench of Justices P N Prakash and R Pongiappan said.
“Hence, we modify the sentence of death penalty into one of life imprisonment with a rider that the appellant will not be entitled to any statutory remission or commutation until he completes 25 years of actual imprisonment,” the bench said.
Such a rider was being added because the man has to suffer this long at least for the mindless violence he had let loose on the hapless victims, all because, “he being a coward, lacked the courage to face the financial crunch he was into,” it said.
The bench was passing orders on a revision petition from the prosecution seeking to confirm the death sentence and another one from the accused Dhamodharan alias Prakash challenging the capital punishment.
The Sessions Court (Mahila Court) in Chengalpattu had sentenced Dhamodaran to death on March 11, 2020.
