Samridh Chaturvedi is a JURIST correspondent and third-year law student at the School of Law, Christ (Deemed to be University), where he reports on legal, political and human rights developments in India.
On June 11, the Madurai Bank became the Madras High Court has issued a bail order that goes far beyond the immediate facts of the case. In the case Saravanan v. State of Tamil Nadu (Crl.A(MD) No. 277 of 2026), Allowing a bail application for Saravanan – the acting sub-inspector of police and also the father of the prime accused in an honor killing case – Justice B Pugalendhi used the opportunity to add a pointed legal commentary on how caste-based violence is recurrent in Tamil Nadu and across Indian society generally. The Saravanan case This was a bail appeal which was heard below Section 14-A(2) of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities Act), 1989. Even if the verdict provides relief A man accused of abetting a gruesome murder reads largely like a direct criticism of a social structure that makes these murders possible in the first place.
The events underlying the case occurred on July 27, 2025 in Tirunelveli district of Tamil Nadu. Kavin Selvaganesh, a 27-year-old software developer and member of the Hindu Devendra Kula Vellalar community, was hacked to death by the main accused, the brother of a woman with whom Kavin was reportedly in a relationship. The woman’s family was Hindu Maravar Community. What made the case stand out was the background of the defendants. The woman’s father, Saravanan (the second accused), and his wife were both serving as police sub-inspectors at the time of the incident. According to the prosecution, Saravanan went to the crime scene after learning about the killing from his son. There he is said to have given the police officer present misleading information about the caste of the deceased. In addition, he is accused of contributing to the destruction of evidence by instructing his son to dispose of the victim’s clothing, cell phone and even the license plate of the victim’s vehicle.
To understand why this issue creates such an awkward mix of law and everyday social life, some background information is necessary. The sentence “Honor killing” –Used for family member killings of someone believed to have disgraced the family, usually through a relationship with someone across caste or religious lines—is not recognized or defined as a separate offense in Indian criminal law. These types of cases will usually fall under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023—which has essentially replaced the Indian Penal Code—along with the applicable parts of the Prevention of Atrocities Act, but only if the victim belongs to a Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe. Here, Saravanan was charged under Sections 203(1), 238(a), 249(a) and 318(3) of the BNS, which criminalize offenses such as causing disappearance of evidence, harboring an offender and unlawful imprisonment. This was read along with Sections 3(1)(r), 3(1)(s) and 3(2)(v) of the Prevention of Atrocities Act.
India still does not have its own central legislation specifically targeting honor killings, at least not yet. The Law Commission of India, in its 242nd report from 2012had recommended the passage of something along these lines, and the Supreme Court in Shakti Vahini v. Union of India (2018) directed states to set up special cells and take preventive measures. Nevertheless, an independent law was never passed. Tamil Nadu also does not appear to have a specific law to prevent honor killings, although the state pursues such cases based on existing legal frameworks. In the present case, the court noted that 59 honor killings have been recorded in Tamil Nadu in the last decade – a figure which Justice Pugalendhi described as a kind of evidence that casteism is deeply embedded in the public consciousness.
Saravanan’s bail application, filed as the second defendant, argued that his role was either marginal or misunderstood. His lawyer claimed he went to the crime scene, informed police of his son’s involvement and turned himself in the same day. They also claimed that there was no evidence of telephone conversations between him and his son before the murder. The prosecution and the victim’s family opposed bail, arguing that Saravanan, as a police officer, posed a risk of intimidating the witness. They noted that three previous bail applications had already been rejected, including one by the Supreme Court in December 2025. By the time the current appeal was heard, Saravanan had already spent 10 months in custody and filed a final chargesheet.
After examining the materials, the court concluded that the indictment did not establish a clear evidentiary connection between Saravanan and the main offense. It noted that no preliminary discussions had taken place between him and the deceased or his son and noted that further detention at that time would effectively amount to pre-trial detention. The bail was granted under strict conditions: Saravanan was directed to reside in Coimbatore, report to the nearest police station twice a day and pay a bail amount of Rs 100,000. 1,00,000 with two sureties and submit an undertaking not to visit the crime scene or intimidate witnesses during the trial.
What is special about this judgment, however, is not its tenor, but rather its obiter dicta – the court’s observations, which, although not legally binding, carry considerable moral and institutional weight. Judge Pugalendhi pointed out that even though the applicant was not directly involved in the killing, he had some responsibility for raising a son who was influenced by casteist thinking. The court acknowledged that this mindset is not limited to one family or community and openly acknowledged that even judges are not immune to its influence. Court orders are often read by observers through the lens of caste. Such judicial confidence expressed in a written judgment is relatively rare in Indian legal discourse and deserves attention. The court also noted the limited effectiveness of existing legal frameworks; the kind that looks solid in theory, but not so much on the ground. The court also highlighted the increasing number of cases registered under the Atrocities Act despite the law being in force since 1989. While a government-appointed committee – headed by retired Justice K. Chandru – had earlier tried to address caste discrimination in schools, the court admitted that Justice Chandru’s recommendations were never implemented. This pattern, whereby legal frameworks never translate from paper to practice, appears to be familiar to the Court, despite operating within the same framework.
From the perspective of a law student observing this case, what is most striking is the tension that the court implicitly notes between two layers of the same system. At one level, the law provides for remedies such as the Atrocities Act, bail jurisprudence under the BNS and the Supreme Court directions on honor killings. At the other level, the social conditions that lead to these killings—caste endogamy enforced through violence and communities that view intercaste relations as a threat to shared identity—remain stubbornly intact. The law can punish individual actions, but is far less willing to overturn the social grammar that makes those actions seem like an obligation to some. The court’s turn to moral exhortation – an appeal to soldiers who die without caste marks on their blood, a reference to the idea that caste differences dissolve in common sacrifice, or to nature giving rain and sun to all without favor – reveals this frustration. They are powerful images that illustrate the gap between laws and deep-rooted, structural social problems.
There is also a procedural issue in all of this that needs to be considered. As a sitting police officer, Saravanan’s position raises real concerns about witness influence, evidence tampering and institutional cover-ups – risks that are structurally higher when the defendant can use the state machinery. The victim’s family was not wrong to raise these points. The conditions imposed by the court are not small, but their effectiveness depends on the quality of the monitoring. It remains to be seen whether the twice-daily reporting requirement and residency restrictions really protect the process from disruption. Civil society and the court itself must watch closely.
The Kavin honor killing case and its legal fallout highlight a problem that India has not solved for decades: caste-based violence that crosses class boundaries, affects those in positions of institutional authority, and continues to occur at a pace that legislation alone has clearly been unable to prevent. The court’s decision to grant bail may be justifiable based on the facts presented before the trial; His broader comments about state responsibility, the failure of school reform, and the need for political will to match legislative intent are aimed at a much larger audience than the parties in this case.
Whether national and local governments in Tamil Nadu are listening and whether, as Justice Pugalendhi put it, people’s mindsets can truly be changed are questions that will be answered not in courtrooms but in classrooms, council chambers and communities. The trial is expected to continue in the Second Additional Sessions Court (SC) No. 120 of 2025 in Tirunelveli and in the coming months, human rights activists and legal observers will closely monitor the extent of the bail conditions.
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