At 2:15 AM on December 8, a frantic phone call shattered the silence of the police control room.
It was the beginning of a scandal that would consume courts, divide the medical fraternity, and question the very soul of Indian forensic science for the next three decades. To understand the scandal, one must first understand the illusion.
But the drama was far from over. Sujatha appealed to the Supreme Court of India. For eight more years, the case hung in limbo. Medical journals across the world debated the case. Was it murder or a rare allergic reaction? INDIA-S BIGGEST SCANDAL Mysore Mallige
She was killed not by a needle, but by arrogance—the arrogance of a man who thought his degree made him a god.
The High Court convicted Dr. Sujatha Kumar. He was sentenced to . At 2:15 AM on December 8, a frantic
Then, in 2001, the Sessions Court delivered its verdict:
He suspected her of having an affair with a fellow professor. She accused him of being impotent and cruel. The paradise was a prison. The official version from Dr. Sujatha Kumar was precise, clinical—too clinical. But the drama was far from over
In 2005, the High Court looked at the same evidence and saw the opposite. “The conduct of the accused,” the bench noted, “is inconsistent with that of a grieving husband. He did not raise an alarm. He did not call a neighbor. He called the police directly and confessed. Then, he retracted. The chemical analysis is unassailable.”