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Sessions court awards double life term to student for macabre murder

John David, a 21-year-old medico, was convicted and sentenced to double life imprisonment in the sensational Navarasu murder case by Principal Sessions Judge S R Singaravelu in Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, today.

The accused, a second year medical student of Annamalai University, had brutally murdered Pon Navarasu, a first year student and son of former Madras University vice-chancellor P K Ponnusamy, during a ragging session in his (John David's) hostel room on the night of November 6, 1996.

Delivering the much-awaited judgment in a packed court hall, the judge convicted and sentenced the accused to two terms of life imprisonment under Sections 302 (murder) and 364 (abduction), seven years of rigorous imprisonment under Section 201 (destruction of evidence) and a fine of Rs 100,000 under the same section, in default to undergo a further period of 21 months's RI, and one year's RI under Section 342 (illegal confinement), of the Indian Penal Code.

The judge said the sentences would run consecutively.

The prosecution's case was that the accused had subjected Navarasu to indignities like stripping, and licking footwear, and when he refused to oblige, John David brutally assaulted him, rendering him unconscious. The accused then committed the macabre act of dismembering Navarasu's limbs and decapitating him. He later disposed of the severed parts of the body in different spots.

On hearing the verdict, John David, who pleaded not guilty, broke down and wept. His mother, a doctor, also sobbed inconsolably.

Stating that the prosecution had built and proved the case wholly on circumstantial evidence, the judge cited a 1886 Madras high court verdict and said, "It is not safe to pass extreme sentence of death in cases where circumstantial evidence alone is available." The ends of justice would be met only if life imprisonment for two terms, each under Section 302 and 364, was awarded, he added.

Even as Navarasu's father was looking for his son, who did not turn up for the Deepavali festival, the police recovered a torso in a bus in Madras, which ultimately turned out to be that of Navarasu.

The judge, who dwelt at length on the depositions of witnesses including the roommates of the victim, said it was certain that the accused had severed the head of Navarasu and thrown it into a canal in the hostel premises.

However, whether the accused had himself taken the torso to Madras and put it in a bus as stated by the prosecution, or was it done by someone else, had not been directly made out, he added.

But the examination of evidences and material factors, clearly connected the accused with the guilt, the judge held.

On the motive for the crime, the judge said when other juniors had obliged the accused, the disinclination of Navarasu, who happened to be the son of a vice-chancellor, might have irritated the accused and made him desperate, with both being egotistic.

Referring to the prosecution's submission that the brutal act made the society "get gooseflesh," the judge said the court had already formulated that the reaction of society alone could not be taken into consideration. "What we are concerned is the facts and circumstances proved before us", he added.

"Although the offence was primitive and gruesome in nature, due consideration had to be given for this unfortunate youth who has not only entangled himself in the heinous crime due to egotism and petty-mindedness, but also made his parents, who had dreamt of their son becoming a success in the medical profession, to undergo eternal agony," the judge observed.

The murder came to light when Professor Ponnusamy lodged a complaint with the Annamalai Nagar police station on November 10 and the needle of suspicion pointed to John David, who went into hiding but later gave himself up before a court in Needamangalam, near Thanjavur.

UNI

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