The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine the plea by TV journalist Soumya Viswanathan’s mother against the bail granted to four convicts who were serving life imprisonment for the 2008 murder of her daughter.
A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal issued notices to the Delhi government and the four convicts on Madhavi Viswanathan’s petition. Advocate Amit Kumar, who represented convicts Amit Shukla and Baljeet Singh Malik, opposed her plea. The Delhi High Court had on February 12 suspended the sentence of Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik and Ajay Kumar and granted them bail during the pendency of their appeals challenging their conviction and sentence.
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. While granting relief to the convicts, the high court noted that they had been in custody for 14 years. The high court had on January 23 asked the Delhi Police to respond to the appeals filed by the four convicts.
A special court had on November 26, 2023, awarded two life terms to Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay 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 will 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.
It had, however, set off the three-year sentence against the time Sethi had already served, noting he remained in custody for more than 14 years and underwent incarceration during the trial for offences under the IPC and MCOCA for conspiring to abet, aid, or knowingly facilitate organised crime and receiving proceeds thereof. While sentencing Kapoor, Shukla, Malik and Kumar to double life imprisonment, the trial court also imposed a fine of Rs 1.25 lakh on each of them. It had imposed a fine of Rs 7.25 lakh on Sethi.
Out of the four convicts, Kapoor, Shukla and Malik were also convicted of killing IT professional Jigisha Ghosh. The trio later confessed to police they were behind Vishwanathan’s murder, and the weapon used for killing her was recovered from their possession. The Delhi Police had said robbery was the motive for Vishwanathan’s killing. The trial court had awarded the death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla and sentenced Malik to life imprisonment in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case.
However, the high court commuted their death sentence to life imprisonment. It upheld Malik’s life sentence. According to the prosecution, Kapoor shot Vishwanathan with a country-made pistol while chasing her car to rob her. Shukla, Kumar and Malik were also with Kapoor. Police recovered the car used in the crime from Sethi.
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