The Kerala High Court has recently called for a retrial of the 2017 Walayar rape-death Case. The case, in the sessions court, made a controversial judgment by acquitting all four perpetrators of all charges. The four accused were Valya Madhu, Kutti Madhu, Shibu, and Pradeep Kumar (who supposedly committed suicide after the Kerala government appealed against the acquittals). They all were accused of sexual assault, rape, and murder of two minor girls in the Palakkad district. A division bench of Justices A Hariprasad and MR Anitha called for a retrial since there were many issues in the case. Both the judges were disgusted by how the police have investigated the murder. They even stated that there was not even proper scientific evidence even after a week after the deaths. Seeing how the sessions judge passively dealt with the case by not looking into the witness testimonies in much detail. There was a call for special training for the judges to sensitize them about the POSCO issues in more detail. The prosecution was also blamed for not being skilled enough to take the fight in the case. All so this resulted in the miscarriage of justice. Now all the three accused have to come before the court on 20th January to begin the retrial.
