The Supreme Court recently comprising of a bench of Justices S.A. Nazeer and J.K. Maheswari will hear the petition filed against the High Court verdict that acquitted the key accused Jayachandran in the Paul Muthoot murder. (George Muthoot George v. CBI)
The bench hearing brief submission made by Advocate, Mr. Kuriakose Varghese granted leave. It observed that the matter needs to be examined in some detail.
Eight accused in the Paul Muthoot murder case were acquitted in 2019. The High Court nullified the sentence passed by the trial court and let first accused Jayachandran, third accused Sathar, fourth accused Sujith, fifth accused Akash Sasidharan, sixth accused Satheesh Kumar, seventh accused Rajeev Kumar, eighth accused Shino Paul and ninth accused Faisal walk free. The court only justified the verdict passed against the second accused, Kari Satheesh, who did not file an appeal against the trial court’s sentence.
The Trial Court had held that nine men formed an unlawful assembly and murdered Paul. However, the High Court opined that there was no unlawful assembly and acquitted eight men of charges of murder. The conviction and sentence under Section 302 IPC was sustained for one.
George Muthoot George has approached the SC saying that Jayachandran was the leader of the gang of the hired goons, including Kari Satheesh. The petition also reads that it was upon Jayachandran’s directions that the gang followed the car in which Paul was travelling and murdered him.
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