The police assumed it was a drunken brawl. But when Inspector Shankar reached the sprawling house, he found a scene that did not fit any template. A young, beautiful woman—Neeraj Kumari—lay on a crumpled bed, her silk nightie twisted, her limbs cold. Beside her knelt Dr. Sujatha Kumar, a respected cardiac anesthesiologist, trembling.
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.” 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 police assumed it was a drunken brawl
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. Beside her knelt Dr
The medical community froze. Succinylcholine is a controlled substance, available only in operating theaters. Dr. Sujatha Kumar had access to the JSS Hospital OT. He had stolen the drugs. He had injected his wife with a paralytic, watched her choke on her own froth, then waited two hours to “find” her. The trial began in 1994. It wasn’t just a murder trial; it was a duel between two Indias: the old, bumbling forensic system and the rising tide of scientific scrutiny.