INDIA: MADRAS HIGH COURT COMMUTES DEATH SENTENCE, SAYS ACCUSED NOT MENACE TO SOCIETY

October 15, 2025:

Madras high court on October 11, 2025 commuted the death sentence awarded to a man to life imprisonment in a case where he murdered his cousin because she refused to give him money to settle his debts, in 2021.
P Sivagami, a resident of Ponnagar in Pudukottai district, was living with her daughter Logapriya in her house.
The convict, Lakshmanan, is son of Sivagami's sister and Logapriya's cousin.
On April 27, 2021, Logapriya was alone in the house when Lakshmanan arrived and demanded money to settle his debts. When she refused, Lakshmanan attacked her with a knife, inflicting several injuries on her body. He also hit her on the head with an iron rod, killing her on the spot. Thereafter, he fled after stealing her gold chain, mobile phone, and two-wheeler.
Based on Sivagami's complaint, Ganesh Nagar police registered a case and arrested Lakshmanan. Police filed the chargesheet before the trial court, and on April 30, 2025, the Pudukottai principal district and sessions court convicted Lakshmanan for murder and awarded him death sentence.
When the case was referred to the HC Madurai bench for confirming the death sentence, Lakshmanan challenged the trial court order.
A division bench of Justice A D Jagadish Chandira and Justice R. Poornima observed that on a holistic analysis of the evidence on record, there was no material to disturb the findings of the trial court regarding the appellant committing the murder. The conviction was fully justified and did not warrant any interference.
From a careful analysis of the aggravating and mitigating circumstances, the court concluded that the case did not fall within the ‘rarest of rare cases' category warranting death sentence. There was nothing on record to show that the appellant was either a menace to society or impossible to reform. While the present offence was undoubtedly grave and heinous, the mitigating factors such as absence of prior criminal antecedents, possibility of reformation, and satisfactory conduct of the accused in custody weighed in favour of commuting the sentence. Thus, the judges commuted the death sentence imposed on the appellant to imprisonment for life.