Koodathayi Murders: Kerala HC Decline To Intervene With Trial Court’s Order Against Jolly Joseph

The Kerala High Court on Monday declined to intervene with the trial court’s decision to charge Jollyamma Joseph (also known as Jolly), the main accused in the Koodathayi cyanide murders.

A single bench of Justice Bechu Kurian Thomas denied Jolly’s plea challenging the trial court’s decision dismissing her petition to dismissed the filing of charges against her.

The Koodathayi cyanide murders are the unexplained deaths of six people in Kerala’s Koodathayi. All of the victims were Jolly’s relatives.

Jolly has been accused of killing her husband and her parents-in-law.

But the current plea relates to the murder of Roy Thomas alone.

What is the story behind the Koodathayi Murders?

It was the year 1997 when Jolly and her husband Roy Thomas married and since then were living with Roy’s parents at Koodathai.

Jolly was allegedly involved in an extramarital relationship with another man, whom she persuaded to obtain cyanide for her. She is accused of putting cyanide in the food Roy was eating with the intention of killing him.

On September 30, 2011, Roy felt sick after eating the food made by Jolly and later declared dead at the hospital.

Jolly informed the family members that Roy had passed away from a heart attack at that time.

The FIR (first information report) was forwarded to the Sessions Court, and the inquiry was halted ostensibly because there was no suspicion of murder.

The investigation was reopened because of the suspicions of some other family members.

After gathering some evidence from watching Jolly’s daily actions, the investigative agency made the decision to exhume the graves of the deceased, including Roy.

On October 5, 2019, the investigative agency detained Jolly and the other two accused persons.

Jolly approached the trial court with two pleas.

She started by requesting her discharge from the case. The plea was rejected by the trial court, and Jolly appealed this decision to the High Court in a revision petition.

During the pendency of the stated petition before the High Court, Jolly moved the trial court again with a plea under section 309 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) to defer the formulation of the charge till the criminal revision petition was resolved.

But the trial court also rejected this petition, which prompted the High Court to hear the current revision case.