Orders reserved on 10 convicts’ plea in Gokulraj murder case

CHENNAI: A division bench of Madras High Court on Thursday reserved orders in the appeals preferred by 10 life-term convicts in the murder case of an engineering student V Gokulraj. The appellants challenged the order of the trial court sentencing them to undergo life-term imprisonment.

After a marathon of hearings, the bench comprising Justice MS Ramesh and Justice N Anand Venkatesh reserved the orders in the case. It is also noted that the deceased’s mother V Chitra and police had also made an appeal challenging the trial court’s order acquitting five other persons in the case.

According to the appellants, including Yuvaraj, president, Maaveeran Dheeran Chinnamalai Gounder Peravai, they were not involved in the murder of Gokulraj and alleged discrepancies in examining the CCTV footage fetched from Tiruchengode Arulmigu Arthanareeswarar Hill Temple from where the youth was allegedly kidnapped by the convicts.

The convicts claimed that though there are eight CCTV facilities around the temple, the police have examined only two of them. Police submitted that they had examined all the material evidence, including CCTV carefully.

Recording the submissions, the judges reserved orders in the case.