B Chinnasamy, sentenced to death by the trial court in the sensational honour killing of V Shankar, a Dalit engineering student who had married the former’s daughter Kowsalya, was ordered to be released forthwith by a Division Bench of the Madras High Court on Monday.

By way of a 327-page judgment, the Bench of Justices M Sathyanarayanan and N Nirmal Kumar not only acquitted Chinnasamy of all charges, including that of criminal conspiracy, and set aside the sentence, but also passed an order that the fine amount, if any, appropriated by the State as ordered by the trial court, be refunded to Chinnasamy.

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On receiving a copy of the judgment on Tuesday, Chinnasamy was released from the Central Prison in Coimbatore. Angry over Shankar marrying Kowsalya, who belongs to the dominant Thevar community, Chinnasamy was alleged to have hired a gang of five assailants who had hacked Shankar to death and attempted to murder Kowsalya in broad daylight at Udumalpet in Tamil Nadu on 13 March 2016. Kowsalya escaped with severe injuries. The police found that Chinnasamy, the prime accused, had withdrawn Rs 80,000 from his joint bank account with his wife Annalakshmi between March 12 and 14, 2016, and a sum of Rs 50,000 was seized from two of the hired assailants.

Kowsalya’s mother and two other accused were acquitted by the trial court for want of evidence. Chinnasamy and the five assailants were sentenced to death by the trial court. The High Court concluded the assailants were guilty because of their fatal overt acts, but commuted their death sentence to rigorous life imprisonment for life with a minimum of 25 years without any right for remission. The acquittal of Chinnasamy has sent a wrong message to casteist forces in Tamil Nadu. It was Kowsalya’s courageous deposition against her parents that led to the conviction of the accused in the trial court. She said her parents were the brains behind the conspiracy as they had a score to settle with Shankar for marrying her against their wishes.

While the trial court found the same evidence, her father withdrawing cash from the ATM to pay the killers and paying to billet them in a lodge, to be credible enough to convict them, the learned High Court judges found fault with the prosecution for not obtaining CCTV footage from the ATM. Hence they found it difficult to accept the police claim that the money withdrawn from the bank was paid to the killers and the lodge keeper. The judges said the police had failed to prove that it was no one else but Chinnasamy who withdrew money from his joint account with his wife. It is only the account holder who draws money from his account for whatever purpose.

When murder is attributed to conspiracy, seldom does the conspirator get convicted. It is almost impossible to prove conspiracy in a court of law. Appellate courts can exercise discretion over anything. The Bench, however, chose to set free the accused conspirator instead of taking into consideration the overall circumstances that led to the honour killing of Shankar. It is an institutional problem in Tamil Nadu that discriminates against Dalits and their lives.