The Madras High Court on Friday acquitted former DMK MLA Rajkumar and his aide, who were sentenced to 10 years of rigorous imprisonment for alleged kidnap, sexual assault and murder of a 15-year-old girl working as a domestic worker in the house of the former. The Madras High Court set aside the 2018 verdict of a special court stating that evidence was not proved in the case.

The Special Court for MPs and MLAs in 2018 awarded 10 years life imprisonment and Rs 42,000 fine for Rajkumar and his aide Jaishankar.

Challenging the order of Special Court for MPs/MLAs, Rajkumar filed a case in Madras HC that came up for hearing before Justice N Sathish Kumar on Friday. During the hearing, the judge noted that the police did not prove the alleged criminal conspiracy or rape or murder of the minor girl and hence he set aside the conviction.

Rajkumar was the MLA for Perambalur constituency from 2006 and 2011.

According to reports, the parents of the 15-year-old girl from Kerala left her in the house of the DMK MLA to work as a domestic worker in June 2012. They were reportedly promised that she would receive an education in return. However, days later, she was admitted to a hospital after suffering from breathlessness. She, however, passed away in August the same year. 

The relatives of the girl staged a protest in front of the hospital, following which the police registered a case in Kerala. The post-mortem for the girl was performed in Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The doctors in Tamil Nadu suspected the death to have been caused due to vaginal injury but doctors in Kerala suspected that the girl died of pneumonia. The doctors who conducted the post-mortem did not conduct a vaginal swab test, stated reports.

The case was later transferred to the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID).