The Delhi High Court in the case observed and has sentenced four men to life imprisonment in the murder case of journalist Soumya Vishwanathan, more than 15 years after she was being killed in the year 2008.
The bench headed by Additional session judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey of Saket Court in the case observed and has sentenced the fifth convict, Ajay Sethi, to simple imprisonment for a period of three years.
In the present case, the four convicts namely Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The court imposed the fines on the convicts and the detailed order on sentencing is awaited.
The court in the case observed and has convicted the five men on October 18.
The court stated that those convicts who have been awarded life sentence were found guilty for the offences under Section 302, murder and Section 34, common intention of Indian Penal Code, 1860.
The court observed that they were also found guilty under Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, MCOCA provisions for committing organised crime which results in the death of any person.
The court convicted Sethi for the offence as stated under Section 411, the dishonestly receiving stolen property of the Indian Penal Code, IPC as well as MCOCA for conspiring to abet, aid, or knowingly facilitate organised crime and receiving proceeds of organised crime.
Therefore, all the convicts have been in custody since March 2009.
The court stated that Vishwanathan was shot dead on September 30, 2008, while she was returning to her home from work in her car late in the night.
It has also been claimed by the Delhi Police that the motive behind her murder was robbery and as per the police, the journalist’s murder case was cracked after the recovery of the weapon used in IT executive Jigisha Ghosh’s killing.
The Trial court in the case observed and was awarded the death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla and sentenced Malik to a life imprisonment in Jigisha Ghosh murder case in August 2016.
The Delhi High Court had commuted the death sentence awarded to Kapoor and Shukla to life imprisonment in 2018.
Therefore, the High Court upheld the Malik’s life imprisonment.