The Madras High Court has granted bail to a woman accused of sponsoring the 2024 murder of Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) former State president K. Armstrong because she wanted to take revenge, denied bail to a co-accused, cancelled the bail granted by a sessions court to 12 other accused persons and confirmed the bail granted by the trial court to two more of the 30 people roped in the case.
Justice K. Rajasekar granted bail to S. Porkodi, who had been charged for the offence of giving her deceased husband Arcot Suresh’s 10 sovereign gold bracelet which was reportedly pledged for ₹3.56 lakh to procure vehicles and to provide accommodation to the assailants of Armstrong. The judge took into consideration that the petitioner was a woman who had been incarcerated for long.
Though the prosecution claimed that it was in possession of call detail records to prove that she was constantly in touch with the assailants for eliminating those she perceived to be responsible for her husband’s death, the judge said, the charge against her was only of generating the money required for the murder and “there is no allegation that she had active participation in the commission of the offence.”
The judge, however, refused to grant bail to advocate K. Haridharan, who had been arrayed as the nineteenth accused in the case and charged with the offence of transferring funds to the co-accused and destroying evidence by breaking six mobile phones and throwing them in to the River Kosasthalaiyar. The police had recovered those mobile phones using scuba divers and sent them for forensic analysis.
