The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside a 2024 Madras High Court decision acquitting accused persons in the 2013 sensational murder of neurosurgeon S.D. Subbiah near Billroth Hospital in Raja Annamalaipuram in Chennai.

“The present case is a classic illustration of how humans tend to surpass all limits of sound human behavior and even go to the extent of crushing human lives in the pursuance of their greed,” a Bench of Justices MM Sundresh and S.C. Sharma observed in a 96-page judgment.

The court said a reputed doctor in Chennai met a brutal death in broad daylight over a disputed piece of land in Kanyakumari district. The actors involved in the crime included the land-grabbing mafia, few advocates and henchmen.

The apex court upheld the trial court judgment of conviction of all nine accused, including P. Ponnusamy, his wife Mary Pushpam, their two sons, P. Basil and P. Boris.

The trial court had sentenced the father and his sons to death along with four other accused persons in August 2021. The Sessions Court had sentenced Ms. Pushpam and another accused to life Imprisonment.

The State of Tamil Nadu, represented by senior advocate Siddharth Luthra and advocates MF Philip and Purnima Krishna, had moved the Supreme Court in criminal appeal against the High Court’s acquittal.

Commuting the death penalty to life sentence, the Supreme Court asked the accused to surrender, except in the case of Mr. Ponnusamy and Ms. Pushpam, who were of advanced age.

The court said the involvement of the aged parents stemmed from a “deeply misplaced sense of parental obligation and emotional attachment towards securing the perceived welfare and future of their children”.

“The parental instinct to protect and provide is one of the most powerful human impulses which can, at times, cloud judgment and rational thinking,” Justice Sharma, who authored the judgment, reasoned.

The judge noted that the parents had played a very limited role in the crime and had blindly acted in accordance with the directions of their sons. They had joined the conspiracy at the instance of their children and money from Mr. Ponnusamy’s bank account was used for the murder.

Taking these “mitigating circumstances” under consideration, the apex court gave the elderly couple eight weeks to apply to the Tamil Nadu Governor for pardon. Their sentence would remain suspended for the period. The remaining accused were given two weeks to surrender before the trial court or face coercive measures. A 10th accused had turned approver.

According to the prosecution, the neurosurgeon was attacked by a three-member gang, when he was about to get into his car parked on the side of a road in R.A Puram in Chennai at around 5 pm on September 14, 2013. He suffered multiple injuries and succumbed on September 23, 2013.

After his death, the police altered the charges in the First Information Report (FIR) from Section 307 (attempt to murder) to Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code and arrested 10 persons.

The police had concluded that Mr. Ponnusamy and his family members had engaged the gang to kill the neurosurgeon due to a property dispute.