New Delhi | The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside a Madras High Court order and restored the conviction of nine persons for their role in the 2013 broad-daylight murder of renowned Chennai-based neurologist Subbiah.

While the trial court had originally sentenced several of the accused to death, a bench comprising Justices MM Sundresh and Satish Chandra Sharma took note of the state government’s decision not to press for capital punishment and commuted the sentences to life imprisonment.

Authoring the 96-page judgment, Justice Sharma began with a poignant quote from Rabindranath Tagore on the "capaciousness of greed".

"The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness. Its one object is to produce and consume. It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment’s hesitation to crush beauty and life," Tagore had said.

The murder, which took place on September 14, 2013, was the culmination of a bitter, decade-long dispute over a two-acre land parcel in Kanyakumari.

Dr Subbiah had longstanding disputes with members of the accused family over ownership of the land.

Multiple complaints had been filed before the Land Grabbing Cell, and tensions escalated after criminal proceedings and attempts to cancel the anticipatory bail obtained by some accused.

The prosecution successfully proved that the family of one of the accused conspired with henchmen to "eliminate" the doctor, believing his death would allow them to seize the property.

The trial court, in 2021, found the accused guilty and sentenced seven of them to death.

In June 2024, the Madras High Court set aside the conviction entirely, acquitting all accused after finding fault in the evidence of the "approver" (an accomplice-turned-witness) and the delay in witness statements.

The top court reversed the high court’s acquittal, calling it a "grave error" and restoring the trial court’s findings of guilt. After trial proceedings involving 57 prosecution witnesses and extensive documentary and forensic evidence, the trial court convicted all the accused persons.

Several of them were sentenced to death under Section 302 of the IPC.