HC disapproves of release of convicted husband alone in infant murder case

It tells govt. to recommend premature release of his wife, a co-accused in crime

The Madras High Court has disapproved of the stand taken by the State government, which ordered premature release of a man convicted for smothering his three-day-old baby girl to death in Salem in 1992, but denied the same relief to his wife, who was the co-accused in the crime and had also been sentenced to life imprisonment along with him.

A Bench of Justices P.N. Prakash and R. Hemalatha wrote: “What is sauce for the goose, cannot be soup for the gander.” They held that the contradictory stand taken by the government with respect to the two convicts involved in the same crime was nothing but arbitrary and fails the test of fairness and legal certainty as propounded by the Supreme Court.

The judges pointed out that K. Rajasekar, a widower had a daughter through his first wife. He fathered two more girl children through his second wife R. Shanthi. The birth of the last child placed the couple in a state of emotional distress as they feared they would not be able to bring up all three girl children in the family with their meagre income.