P Rajagopal, the founder of the Indian food chain Saravana Bhavan, who was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of one of his employees passed away in a Chennai hospital on Thursday, 18 July, reportedly due to a cardiac arrest.
Rajagopal had surrendered last week before the IV Additional Sessions court in Chennai, after the Supreme Court had rejected his plea seeking more time in the Saravana Bhavan case, pertaining to the murder of one of his employees.
WHO IS P RAJAGOPAL?
The founder of the famous Saravana Bhavan chain of hotels in Tamil Nadu.
Rajagopal was born in a poor farmer’s family in a village in Tutricorin. Rajagopalan passed away at the age of 72 on Thursday.
He started the Saravana Bhavan chain as a small hotel in KK Nagar in 1981. It later went on to become the largest South Indian vegetarian restaurant chain in the world.
THE SARAVANA BHAVAN CASE
The case against Rajagopal dated back to 2001, when his henchmen kidnapped and murdered Prince Santhakumar when the latter was on his way to Tiruchendur with his wife Jeevajyothi and her parents.
Santhakumar’s body was found in Kodaikkanal. Rajagopal was interested in marrying Jeevajyothi and take her as his third wife based on the advice of his astrologer. However, Jeevajyothi had spurned his advances and married Santhakumar, whom she had fallen in love with.
Rajagopal continued to pursue her even after her wedding despite her resistance. Though she resisted his advances and threatened to seek help of the police, Rajagopal had told her that he would manage the police with his money power and continued to harass the couple.
In 2004, Rajagopal was found guilty and was sentenced to 10 years rigorous imprisonment.
CHARGED WITH LIFE IMPRISONMENT
Rajagopal challenged the verdict in Madras High Court, which enhanced the punishment and sentenced him to life in prison. He appealed against this order in the Supreme Court which, in March 2019, upheld the decision of the High court.
The apex court also granted him time till 7 July to surrender before the police or a court. However, before his deadline on 7 July, he got admitted to a hospital in Chennai citing health reasons and failed to surrender on the deadline.
It was reported that in a bid to evade surrender, Rajagopal had got himself admitted to the hospital earlier in July. In fact, Rajagopal had even come to surrender in an ambulance.
In March this year, the apex court had upheld his life imprisonment sentence awarded by the Madras High Court.
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