17 June 2024 :
The Madras high court on June 14, 2024 set aside the conviction as well as death sentence imposed on seven people and life sentences imposed on two more in the 2013 murder case of neurosurgeon SD Subbiah near Billroth Hospital in Chennai.
All nine appellants have been set free.
A bench of justice MS Ramesh and justice Sunder Mohan, acquitted all nine accused by allowing their criminal appeals.
At the time of writing, the court had not issued its order and no oral orders were made on the reasons for acquittal.
The principal sessions court judge IS Alli in August 2021 had awarded the death penalty to seven accused: P Ponnusamy, his sons P Basil and P Boris, B William, James Sathish Kumar, E Murugan and S Selva Prakash.
The lower court had awarded life imprisonment to H Yesurajan and Ponnusamy’s wife Mary Pushpam. One accused, P Iyyapan who had turned approver was released without punishment by the sessions court.
One of the accused B William, is an advocate whose bail petition was rejected by the Supreme Court in May 2018.
All the accused moved the High Court with appeals seeking to acquit them from the murder charges. The court bench ordered for the nine appellants to be released from prison.
“All of them have been given relief,” said one of the lawyers of the accused who did not want to be named. “A family of four are accused A1 to A4, A5 and A6 are their friends. We argued strongly that unrelated people have been named in this case. High court may have considered that and acquitted all of them. We have to wait for the full judgement. They have been ordered to be released.”
According to the prosecution, henchmen murdered the 58-year-old doctor in full public view while he was walking out of Chennai’s Billroth Hospital after work towards his parked car on the evening of September 14, 2013. A land dispute with his family over a 2.4-acre plot at the doctor’s native of Anjugramam village in Tamil Nadu’s Kanyakumari district allegedly led to the crime.
Three people wielding machetes had attacked the doctor on his head and neck. He suffered more than 20 cuts across his body, the prosecution said.
CCTV cameras installed at a nearby apartment captured the brutal attack. Nine days later, the doctor succumbed to his injuries.
