Madhu Lynching Case: Kerala High Court Acquits First Accused Hussain, Upholds Conviction Of 12 Others

The Kerala High Court on Monday (May 25) acquitted Hussain, the first accused in the murder of Madhu, a mentally challenged tribal youth, who was brutally lynched to death for stealing rice from a grocery shop in Attappady, Palakkad in February 2018.

The Division Bench of Justice Raja Vijayaraghavan V. and Justice K.V. Jayakumar passed the verdict in the appeal preferred by the convict.

The State and the victim's mother had also preferred separate appeals challenging acquittal of two. 

The Special Court for SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Mannarkkad had convicted 14 of the 16 accused in the case.

The High Court today refused to interfere with the acquittals ofaccused nos. 4 (Aneesh) and 11 (Abdul Kareem).

It upheld the conviction of Marakkar (2nd accused), Shamsudheen (3rd accused), Radhakrishnan (5th accused), Aboobacker (6th accused), Sidhique (7th accused), Ubaid (8th accused), Najeeb (9th accused), Jaijumon (10th accused), Sajeev (12th accused), Satheesh (13th accused), Hareesh (14th accused) and Biju (15th accused). 

The Court also found them guilty of the offences under Sections 3(2)(v) and 3(2)(va) in addition to the offences under Sections 304 part II, 326, 367, 323, 324, 342, 143, 147, 149 IPC and Section 3(1)(d) of the SC/ST.

Further, Accused No. 16 Muneer, who was convicted only of Section 352 IPC by the Special Court., was also found guilty of the offence punishable under Section 3(2)(va) of the SC/ST Act r/w 323 IPC.

Thus, the Court has partly allowed the State's and victim's appeal challenging the acquittal of A4 and A11 and also seeking conviction of the accused under Section 302 IPC and Section 3(2)(v) and 3(2)(va) of the SC/ST Act.

A detailed judgment is awaited.

The cases would be called again at 12:30 p.m. today to hear the convicts and pronounce the modified sentences.

The accused had been charged with offences punishable under Sections 143, 147, 148, 323, 324, 326, 294(b), 342, 352, 364, 367, 368, and 302 r/w 149 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Sections 3(1) (d), (r) (s) and 3(2) (v) of the Scheduled Caste and SC/ST(PoA) Act. The accused were found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

The Special Court had sentenced 13 convicted persons to rigorous imprisonment for 7 years. The first accused was to pay a fine of Rs. 1,05,000/- while the remaining 12 accused have been imposed with a fine of Rs. 1,18,000/-. The 16th accused person in the case, Muneer, was only found guilty of the offence under Section 352 of IPC, and sentence to undergo simple imprisonment for three months and to pay a fine of Rs. 500/-.

When the appeals had reached the High Court, the sentence of only one of the convicts (Hussain) was suspended.

Case title: Marakkar v. State of Kerala & connected cases

Case number: Crl. Appeal No. 598/2023 & connected cases

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Ker) 286