P Rajagopal, the 72-year-old founder of Saravana Bhavan , a global chain of restaurants, has died of a cardiac arrest. He was in jail serving a life term for murder
Last week, a bench of three judges had trashed claims of poor health as a good reason to let him stay out of jail for some time. Rajagopal was represented by senior lawyer Kapil Sibal.
The Chennai Egmore Metropolitan Magistrate Courts court had then ordered him to be sent to jail where he was to be put through a medical examination as is the norm.
Rajagopal was first found guilty of murder and sentenced to 10 years in 2004. The judge had found him guilty of ordering the abduction and murder of his employee three years earlier to be able to marry his widow.
Rajagopal had appealed against the verdict in the high court which concluded in 2009 that he had been sentenced too lightly and ordered him to serve a life term in jail. He appealed again, this time to the Supreme Court.
In March this year, the top court upheld the life term for the businessman who had started out as an employee at a utensils store before moving on to open a grocery store. He later went on to become the owner of a large restaurant chain.
