Kannada actor Rajkumar abduction case: Madras High Court confirms acquittal of Veerappan’s suspected aides

The Madras High Court, on Wednesday (February 25, 2026), dismissed a State appeal preferred in 2019 against the 2018 acquittal of nine individuals who were suspected to be the members of forest brigand Veerappan’s gang which abducted Kannada actor Rajkumar on July 30, 2000 and held him hostage for 108 days.

A Division Bench of Justices P. Velmurugan and M. Jothiraman confirmed the order of acquittal passed by the third Additional district and sessions court at Gobichettipalayam in Erode district on September 25, 2018 and held that it did not find any reason to interfere with the well-reasoned trial court verdict.

In his verdict, the sessions judge K. Mani had pointed out that the First Information Report (FIR) regarding the abduction was registered about 24 hours after the incident and that too on the basis of a complaint lodged by Village Administrative Officer (VAO) Gopal who was not an eye witness to the incident.

The VAO had claimed to have gained knowledge about the incident only through the general public although according to the prosecution, Rajkumar and three others were abducted from his ancestral farm house at Gajanur village in Thalavady Taluk of Erode district in the presence of many others.

Further, the date in the FIR had been corrected from July 30, 2000 to July 31, 2000 and there was no mention in it regarding any criminal conspiracy having been hatched by the accused to abduct the actor. The VAO had also not spoken about any conspiracy in his testimony before the court, the trial court said.

Veerappan’s audio cassette, demands

Highlighting other inconsistencies in the prosecution case, the sessions judge said, the police had claimed that Veerappan had handed over an audio cassette to Rajkumar’s wife Parvathamma and instructed her to hand over the cassette containing a list of demands, to the Karnataka Chief Minister before approaching the police.

According to the prosecution, the list of demands included release of 205 TMC Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu every year, protection to Tamils residing in Karnataka, adding Tamil as an additional official language in Karnataka government administration, installing a statue for Tiruvalluvar in Bengaluru and so on.

However, one of the accused C. Basuvanna, in his reported confession to the police, pursuant to his arrest in October 2001, had contradicted the prosecution case by claiming that actor Rajkumar was abducted for ransom since Veerappan was desperately in need of money, the trial court had pointed out.

The trial court had gone about listing out several other infirmities in the prosecution case before deciding to acquit all nine individuals from the charges of attempt to murder, possession of arms and so on. Though the police had filed a charge sheet against 10, one of them, C. Mallu, died before conclusion of trial.

Those who got acquitted were S. Maran alias Senguttavan alias Manivannan alias Mullaivalavan alias Kannaiyan, S. Govindaraj alias Megananthan alias Sabha alias Iniyan alias Paranjothi alias Raju, D. Andril alias Elumalai alias Paranjothi, R. Selvam alias Sathya alias Raju, K. Amirthalingam alias Lingam alias Chelzhiyan, Basuvanna, R. Nagaraj, S. Puttusamy and S. Rama alias Kalmandipuram Rama.