The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court on Thursday (February 26, 2026) upheld the life sentences imposed on 26 convicts involved in the 2018 murder of three Scheduled Caste men at Kachanatham in Sivaganga district, and acquitted one person.
A Division Bench of Justices G.K. Ilanthiraiyan and R. Poornima confirmed the life sentences imposed by the trial court on 26 convicts, while acquitting one person, Ilayaraja.
The High Court was hearing the appeals filed by the accused.
What is the case about?
On May 28, 2018, a group of persons belonging to the dominant, intermediate caste attacked the Scheduled Caste villagers with deadly weapons. The assailants were enraged at the members of the Scheduled Caste for not presenting them with temple honours and for sitting cross-legged in their presence.
In 2022, the Special Court for Exclusive Trial of Cases under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act in Sivaganga imposed life sentences on 27 persons belonging to the dominant, intermediate caste.
The members of the dominant, intermediate caste entered the households of the Scheduled Castes and attacked them around 9.30 p.m. after disconnecting the power supply. K. Arumugam, A. Shanmuganathan, and V. Chandrasekhar were hacked to death, and Dhanasekaran, who sustained injuries, died of health complications a year later. Several others were injured in the incident.
A total of 33 persons, including four juveniles, from the dominant, intermediate caste were named as accused in the case.
The trial court, in its judgment, said the members of the dominant Agamudayar community were enraged at the Pallars (Devendra Kula Velalar) for not presenting them with kalanji (honours) of the Karuppansamy temple, as was the practice earlier.
The trial court said the case did not fit into the category of the rarest of rare cases to merit the death penalty.
Therefore, the court decided to sentence them to life imprisonment.
Chance for reform
Though hacking three persons brutally cannot be viewed lightly, executing 27 more lives, without taking steps to reform the accused and reintegrate them into the mainstream, would be viewed as more brutal by the civilised society, the trial court had said.
In 2019, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, while dismissing the criminal appeals filed by some of the accused who challenged an order of the Special Court that denied them bail, said the brutality with which the crime was committed by a mob from the dominant community had a telling effect on the peace and tranquility of society at large.
