The Supreme Court on Thursday stayed the death penalty of a flower vendor accused of raping and murdering a juvenile in Tamil Nadu’s Pudukkottai in 2020. A bench comprising Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud, Justices PS Narasimha, and JB Pardiwala, also asked for the Tamil Nadu government’s statement on the issue. According to the reports, Aditya Sondhi, the Senior Advocate, represented the petitioner.
In 2020, the appellant named M Samivel alias Raja was convicted of rape and murder of a 7-year-old Dalit kid who was killed after a penetrative sexual assault. Before perpetrating sexual assault on the youngster, the accused allegedly established acquaintances with her. Fearing that the girl might tell someone about the crime, the accused smashed her head against a tree and dropped her body into a dry pond.
Examination of the girl’s body found injuries on her head, face, neck, and chest, multiple abrasions on the abdomen, thighs, and private parts, among others. Apart from smashing her against a tree, he had also beaten her with a stick. The vicitim was a class II student.
The accused was found guilty by the trial court and was condemned to death by hanging. The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court further affirmed the death punishment imposed by Sessions Judge Pudukkottai in the case under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act in January (POCSO Act).
A panel of Justices S Vaidyanathan and G Jayachandran emphasized that allowing someone like the accused to thrive in the world would ‘contaminate the brains of co-prisoners on the verge of release.’ The High Court ruled that the presumption was against the accused in this case as Section 29 of the POCSO Act imposed a statutory presumption on the accused.
The bench had dismissed the accused’s contention about the delay in filing a first information report (FIR), reasoning that it was natural to hunt for a missing person in all possible locations and only after determining that the missing person could not be found would one consider filing a police complaint.
The case dates back to June 2020, when a seven-year-old Dalit girl had gone missing and her parents lodged an FIR after searching for her for a day. The Police later found the girl in a deserted location near her village and found that she was sexually abused and killed by M Samivel from the same village. He was arrested by the Police on July 2. During interrogation, he confessed to his crime of sexual assault and murder.
Th girl was seen with her before she disappeared, and his clothes were found to be stained with her blood.
The FIR against the accused was then booked under Sections 376 (rape), 302 (murder), 364 (abduction), and 201 (misleading police) of the Indian Penal Code. Charges under the sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, and SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018 were also slapped against him.
