R Govindasamy had escaped the gallows by a whisker nearly a decade ago at the Central Prison in Coimbatore. Accused of murdering his uncle Nagamalai Gounder, aunt Ponnuthai Ammal and their three children on May 29, 1984, over a property dispute, Govindasamy was acquitted by the trial court the next year for want of evidence.

The state appealed in the High Court in 1988, and a Division Bench reversed the Sessions Court order and awarded Govindasamy capital punishment in 1997. In a few months, the Supreme Court turned down his appeal while the Governor and President rejected his subsequent mercy petitions.

“As soon as the Supreme Court confirmed death penalty, we approached the Madras High Court with a writ petition under Article 226. But since the President and Governor had already rejected the mercy petitions, the authorities had fixed the date for execution — November 16, 1999,” said Govindasamy’s lawyer P H Manoj Pandian. Justice K Govindarajan of the Madras High Court admitted the case the previous day for immediate hearing. “The court heard both sides and granted an interim stay by about 4.30 pm. Through proper channels, the order would not have reached Coimbatore in time to stop the execution. So we obtained a special permission to transmit the order by wire to the prison authorities. By the time they received the order, it was 1 am and they were all ready to hang him early in the morning,” recalled the lawyer.