The Supreme Court Today (July 8th) agreed to examine the pleas filed by Delhi Police challenging the high court’s order granting bail to four convicts, who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the murder case of TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan.
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NEW DELHI: On Monday, the Supreme Court agreed to examine the pleas filed by Delhi Police challenging the high court’s decision to grant bail to four convicts who were sentenced to life imprisonment in the murder case of TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan.
The bench, comprising Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma, issued notices on the four pleas filed by Delhi Police and tagged them with the pending petition filed by Vishwanathan’s mother against the bail granted to the convicts.
At the outset, Additional Solicitor General SV Raju, representing Delhi Police, informed the court that since a notice had already been issued by the apex court, all the pleas should be tagged together. Following this, the bench issued notices and tagged the pleas with the pending matter.
The high court had, on February 12, suspended the sentences of Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar until the pendency of their appeals challenging their conviction and sentence, and granted them bail. The high court had noted that the convicts had been in custody for over 14 years.
On April 22, the apex court had agreed to examine the plea filed by Vishwanathan’s mother against the bail granted to the four convicts. It had issued notices to Delhi Police and the four convicts on Madhavi Vishwanathan’s petition.
Soumya Vishwanathan, who worked with a leading English news channel, was shot dead in the early hours of September 30, 2008, on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi while she was returning home from work in her car.
A special court had, on November 25 last year, awarded two life terms to Kapoor, Shukla, Malik, and Kumar under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 3(1)(i) (committing organised crime resulting in the death of any person) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). The court had made it clear that the sentences would run “consecutively.”
The fifth convict, Ajay Sethi, was handed down three years of simple imprisonment under Section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) of the IPC. He was sentenced to the period already undergone in custody during the trial. While sentencing Kapoor, Shukla, Malik, and Kumar to double life imprisonment, the trial court had also imposed a fine of Rs 1.25 lakh on each of them and a fine of Rs 7.25 lakh on Sethi.
Out of the four convicts, Kapoor, Shukla, and Malik were also convicted for the murder of IT professional Jigisha Ghosh. According to the prosecution, the trio later confessed to the police that they were also behind Vishwanathan’s murder, and the weapon used for killing her was recovered from their possession. Delhi Police had stated that the motive behind Vishwanathan’s killing was robbery.
The trial court had awarded the death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla and sentenced Malik to life imprisonment in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case. However, the death sentences were commuted to life imprisonment by the high court, which upheld Malik’s life sentence.
According to the prosecution, Kapoor shot Vishwanathan with a country-made pistol while chasing her car to rob her, and Shukla, Kumar, and Malik were also with Kapoor. Police recovered the car used in the murder from Sethi.
Click Here to Read Previous Reports on Soumya Vishwanathan Murder
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