The mom of TV journalist Soumya Viswanathan has moved the Supreme Court docket towards the bail granted to 4 convicts who have been serving life imprisonment for her daughter’s homicide in 2008.
The Delhi Excessive Court docket on February 12 suspended the sentence of Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik and Ajay Kumar and granted them bail until the pendency of their appeals difficult their conviction and sentence.
Vishwanathan, who labored with a number one English information channel, was shot lifeless within the early hours of September 30, 2008, on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi whereas she was returning residence from work in her automobile.
An apex court docket bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal is more likely to hear the plea filed by Soumya’s mom Madhavi Viswanathan.
Whereas giving aid to the convicts, the excessive court docket had famous that the convicts have been in custody for 14 years. It had on January 23 requested the Delhi Police to reply to the appeals filed by the 4 convicts.
A particular court docket had on November 26, 2023, awarded two life phrases to Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar beneath Part 302 (homicide) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Part 3(1)(i) (committing organised crime ensuing within the loss of life of any particular person) of the Maharashtra Management of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
The court docket had made it clear that the sentences will run “consecutively”.
The fifth convict, Ajay Sethi, was handed down three years of easy imprisonment beneath part 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) of the IPC.
It, nonetheless, set off the three-year sentence towards the time Sethi had already served, noting he remained in custody for greater than 14 years and underwent incarceration through the trial for offences beneath the IPC and MCOCA for conspiring to abet, help, or knowingly facilitate organised crime and receiving proceeds of organised crime.
Kapoor’s counsel had submitted that he has been in custody for the final 14 years and 9 months and urged the court docket to droop his sentence through the pendency of the attraction.
An identical prayer for suspension of sentence was additionally made by advocate Amit Kumar, who represented Shukla, Malik and Ajay Kumar. Whereas sentencing Kapoor, Shukla, Malik and Kumar to double life imprisonment, the trial court docket had additionally imposed a wonderful of Rs 1.25 lakh on every of them. It had imposed a wonderful of Rs 7.25 lakh on Sethi.