In a quiet courtroom at the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, two judges delivered a firm message on Friday: medical records and admissions can speak louder than a lab report. The court dismissed the appeal filed by a couple convicted for poisoning their own daughter, and confirmed their life sentences for murder. The case, which began with a child falling ill near a temple in Virudhunagar district, returned to the spotlight because the chemical test did not detect poison in her body. The judges were not persuaded.
Background of the Case
S. Muneeswaran and his wife Revathi were tried for the death of their daughter Sadhana, born in 2009 and suffering from a mental disability. The prosecution said the parents, under severe stress, bought an insecticide called “Tafgor,” mixed it into a cool drink, and gave it to the child behind the Kathappasamy Temple on October 1, 2018. People nearby intervened after hearing the child cry. She was rushed to hospital, treated for days, and died on October 6.
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The trial court in Virudhunagar convicted both parents under the law for murder and wrongful confinement, sentencing them to life imprisonment. They challenged that verdict, arguing that witnesses had turned hostile and that the post-mortem report did not find poison in the body.
Before the High Court, the defence said the case was built on weak links. They pointed to the negative viscera report and questioned a photocopy bill produced to show the poison purchase. They also highlighted delays and contradictions in witness statements, claiming the trial court had relied on shaky circumstantial evidence.
The Bench of Justice G.K. Ilanthiraiyan and Justice R. Poornima took a different view. They noted that the child was in the exclusive care of her parents when she was brought to the hospital. The accident register recorded by the duty doctor showed that the mother had stated both parents mixed and gave the poison to the child. The treating doctors described symptoms consistent with organophosphorus poisoning and explained the long treatment that followed.
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The judges addressed the key doubt head-on. They observed that a negative chemical test does not automatically break a poisoning case, especially when the victim survives for several days and receives treatment.
“The absence of detection of poison in the viscera report alone need not be treated as conclusive,” the court noted, relying on settled law and medical literature.
They also relied on the shopkeeper’s testimony that the father bought the insecticide on the day of the incident, and on the parents’ own statements recorded at the hospital.
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“When a person is in the exclusive custody of the accused, it is their legal duty to explain the circumstances leading to the death,” the Bench said, adding that the parents failed to offer any believable explanation.
Decision
While acknowledging the hardship of raising a child with a disability, the court was clear that compassion cannot excuse taking a life.
“No one has the right to take the law into their own hands and extinguish the life of another person,” the judges observed.
Finding no illegality or perversity in the trial court’s judgment, the High Court dismissed the appeal and confirmed the convictions and life sentences imposed on both parents.
Case Title:- S. Muneeswaran & Anr vs State
Case Number:- Criminal Appeal (MD) No. 76 of 2023
Date of Judgment:- 13 February 2026
