The Supreme Court on Tuesday sentenced nine people to life imprisonment in the 2013 doctor murder case in Tamil Nadu, invalidating the 2024 Madras High Court order that acquitted them due to lack of evidence.
While the court ordered seven of the convicts to surrender within two weeks, it suspended the execution of the sentence on two elderly people, one of whom was a woman, until the state’s executive authority decided on their request for pardon.
While doing so, Justices M M Sundresh and SC Sharma said: “We wish to make it clear that these observations are not intended to condone their actions, but are made only for the limited purpose of appreciating the human factors underlying their behaviour.”
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The court sentenced all nine accused to death for the murder of Dr Subbiah, a popular doctor working at Billroth Hospital in Chennai, on September 14, 2013.
On appeal, the Madras High Court on 14 June 2024 quashed the verdict of guilt and acquitted all the accused, including elderly couple P Ponnusamy and Mary Pushpam. Their two sons – Basil and Boris – were allegedly involved in the murder plot, and hatched the plan by locking up six people to carry out the attack on the doctor as he returned from work.
One of the six became a supporter and uncovered the conspiracy that determined how Bonwami donated $6.5 lakh to carry out the crime, as the elderly couple sought to secure the doctor’s property for their children. The Tamil Nadu government, represented by senior advocate Siddharth Luthra, appealed the Supreme Court ruling.
