SUPREME COURT JUDGEMENT
BASKARAN VS STATE OF TAMIL NADU
CRIMINAL APPEAL NO. 121 OF 2008
BASKARAN & ANR. Appellants
VERSUS
STATE OF TAMIL NADU Respondent
This appeal is directed against the judgment and order dated 09.11.2006 passed by the High Court of Madras affirming the conviction and sentence of the first appellant under Section 376 (2) (g), 302 and 201 I.P.C. awarding sentence for life imprisonment along with Rs. 5,000/- fine, 10 years RI, along with Rs. 5,000/- fine and 3 years RI, with a fine of Rs. 2,000/- respectively. The Trial Court had awarded identical sentences to Appellant No. 2, who on appeal in the High Court, was acquitted of the offence of murder under Section 302 IPC but his conviction and sentence under Section 376 I.P.C. was maintained.The Appellants -A1 & A2 along with two others had forcibly taken the deceased girl to a secluded place on 21.10.1995 at about 7.00 p.m., when she was raped and then in course of the same transaction, A1 had strangulated her to death. Further, with a view to screen the offence, all of them threw the dead body to a secluded place in an agricultural field. The body was then discovered by the elder brother of the deceased girl, the next day. Investigation of the case was thereafter conducted which included the post-mortem report of the body of the deceased, wherein the doctor had opined death due to strangulation, injuries on the body, bleeding vaginal rupture. However, the vaginal smear didn’t reveal any traces of semen. The initial investigation didn’t reveal the names of the appellants and even the witnesses examined didn’t offer any clue in this regard. Thus, there were no eye-witness to the incident in support of the prosecution case.The judgement of this case is given below...read more