A 70-year-old rapist will walk free from jail as the Supreme Court allowed his release a year before the completion of his seven year prison term for ravishing a 60-year-old woman, by giving him spiritual advice to turn to God and not repeat such heinous crimes.
"Don't repeat such acts in future. Be a good man. Now at this age you have to do poojas and chant the name of God and spend the rest of your life in peace," a bench of justices Markandeya Katju and RM Lodha observed, as the entire court burst into laughter.
The bench upheld his conviction, but modified the seven year sentence imposed to the six years already undergone by him. The accused, Kaikondan, had raped the 60-year old victim with such savagery that her right hand was fractured.
According to the prosecution, the accused on February 2, 1999 dragged the victim to his hut in Tamil Nadu's Tirunelveli district and raped her. Such was the brutality of the attack that the victim's right hand was fractured, as he gagged her to commit the offence even as she kept screaming.
The accused denied the charge, but on the basis of the medical evidence and the testimony of the victim, besides circumstantial evidence, the sessions court had on February 24, 2004 convicted Kaikondan for rape and imposed a sentence of seven years' rigorous imprisonment.
Aggrieved, the septuagenarian appealed to the Madras High Court which had on March 23, 2008 dismissed his plea and confirmed the sentence following which he moved the apex court.
In the apex court, the accused through his counsel M Vijay Bhaskar, submitted that there was a one-day delay in the registration of the FIR and the prosecution also failed to produce the X-ray report of the alleged fractured hand of the victim.
However, the apex court rejected the argument and concurred with the findings of the two subordinate courts.
But after senior counsel V Kanakaraj pleaded leniency arguing that the accused is now 70-year old and suffering from multiple health complications, the apex court relented and modified the sentence to the period already undergone with the above advice.
