Supreme Court sends Dr Subbaiah murder case accused to life imprisonment

A view of the Supreme Court of India in New Delhi. | Photo credit: Sushil Kumar Verma

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Madras High Court’s 2024 decision acquitting the accused in the 2013 sensational murder of neurosurgeon SD Subbiah near Billroth Hospital in Raja Annamalaipuram, Chennai.

“This case is a classic example of how people tend to cross all bounds of healthy human behavior and even go to the extent of destroying human lives in furtherance of their greed,” Justices MM Sundresh and SC Sharma said in the 96-page judgment.

A court said an alleged Chennai doctor was brutally murdered in broad daylight at a disputed plot in Kanyakumari district. The crime actors included a land grabbing mafia, several advocates and henchmen.

The Supreme Court upheld the trial court’s judgment convicting all nine accused, including P. Ponnusamy, his wife Mary Pushpam, their two sons, P. Basil and P. Boris.

The trial court sentenced the father and his sons to death along with four other accused in August 2021. The sessions court 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, filed a criminal appeal in the Supreme Court against the High Court’s acquittal.

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

The court said the elderly parents’ involvement stemmed from a “deeply misplaced sense of parental duty and emotional attachment to ensuring the perceived well-being and future of their children”.

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

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

Considering these “extenuating circumstances”, the apex court gave the elderly couple eight weeks to seek mercy from the Tamil Nadu governor. Their sentence would be suspended for the time being. The remaining accused were given two weeks to surrender to the trial court or face enforcement measures. The tenth accused became an approver.

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

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

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

Published – 19 May 2026 12:13 IST