Soumya Vishwanathan’s 4 killers, serving life term, granted bail

A bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Manoj Jain suspended the sentence of Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar until the pendency of their appeals challenging their conviction and sentence. The convicts have been in custody for 14 years, as noted by the bench.

The high court had asked the Delhi Police to respond to the appeals filed by the four convicts on January 23. 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 returning home from work.

A special court had 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) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). The sentences were set to run “consecutively”.

The fifth convict, Ajay Sethi, was given three years of simple imprisonment under section 411 of the IPC with the sentence being set off against the time served. Kapoor’s counsel submitted that he has been in custody for the last 14 years and nine months and urged the court to suspend his sentence during the appeal’s pendency.

A similar prayer for suspension of sentence was made by advocate Amit Kumar, representing Shukla, Malik, and Ajay Kumar. The trial court had also imposed fines on the convicts, with Kapoor, Shukla, Malik, and Kumar being sentenced to double life imprisonment and a fine, and Sethi being levied a fine.

While the high court denied parole to Kapoor owing to the gravity of his offenses, it was revealed that out of the four convicts, Kapoor, Shukla, and Malik were also convicted of killing IT professional Jigisha Ghosh. The trio later confessed to police about their involvement in Vishwanathan’s murder.

According to the prosecution, Kapoor shot Vishwanathan while chasing her car to rob her, with Shukla, Kumar, and Malik also present. Police recovered the car used in the murder from Sethi.