Indrani Mukerjea, an accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, approached the Supreme Court seeking permission to travel abroad. A special court had earlier allowed her to visit Spain and the UK for 10 days, spread over the next three months. Mukerjea’s plea emphasizes her need for international travel during these intermittent periods. The apex court’s decision on her application is now awaited.
Indrani Mukerjea, a former media executive accused of murdering her daughter Sheena Bora, has appealed to the Supreme Court to contest the Bombay High Court’s decision that denied her permission to travel abroad.
On July 19, a special court had initially granted Mukerjea’s request to visit Spain and the UK for ten days over the next three months. However, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) challenged this ruling, leading the high court to overturn the special court’s decision on September 27.
In her plea to the Supreme Court, filed through advocate Sana Raees Khan, Mukerjea argued that as a British citizen, “she needed to travel to Spain and the UK to make necessary changes and amendments and take care of pending work that cannot be transacted without her personal presence.” She emphasized the importance of her physical presence to activate a digital certificate required for her administrative tasks in Spain.
The high court’s ruling highlighted Mukerjea’s claims regarding the need to execute documents related to her bank account and other matters in both Spain and the UK.
However, it asserted that she could manage these tasks from India with support from the relevant statutory authorities and the respective embassies.
Murder is typically addressed under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860. The key legal provisions include:
Murder is the unlawful killing of a person with the intent to cause death or bodily harm that is likely to result in death.
- Punishment: Section 302 prescribes the death penalty or life imprisonment, along with a fine, as the maximum punishments for murder.
- Exceptions: Certain cases, such as those covered under Section 300 (exceptions) of IPC (e.g., grave and sudden provocation or self-defense), may reduce the offense to culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
- Burden of Proof: The prosecution must establish intent (mens rea), the act (actus reus), and causation linking the accused to the victim’s death.
Mukerjea arrested in August 2015 after the details of Bora’s murder emerged. In May 2022, she was granted bail by the Supreme Court. She has consistently denied the charges against her. Bora, who was 24 at the time of her death, was allegedly strangled in a car by Mukerjea, her then-driver Shyamvar Rai, and former husband Sanjeev Khanna in April 2012.
Her body was subsequently burned in a forest in Raigad district. The case came to light in 2015 when Rai disclosed the murder during police interrogation linked to a different case. Mukerjea’s ex-husband, Peter Mukerjea, was also arrested for allegedly conspiring in the murder, and all accused are currently out on bail.