The Supreme Court on Monday sought a reply from the Delhi government and the four convicts, serving life imprisonment, in 2008 Soumya Vishwanathan murder case to a plea by her mother challenging the Delhi High Court order suspending their sentence and granting them bail.

A bench comprising Justices Bela M Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal gave both the Delhi government and the four convicts four weeks’ time to file their response.

Advertisement

Soumya Vishwanathan’s mother, Madhavi Vishwanathan, has challenged the February 12, 2024 high court order suspending the sentence of four convicts and granting them bail during the pendency of their appeal against the trial court order of conviction and life imprisonment.

The high court had suspended the sentence of the four convicts – Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar – noting that they have been in custody for 14 years. Kapoor, Shukla and Malik were also convicted in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case.

Soumya Vishwanathan, who worked with an English news channel, was shot dead in the early hours of September 30, 2008, on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi while she returning home from work in her car.

In 2023, almost 15 years after Soumya Vishwanathan was shot, a special court awarded double life sentence 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).

Both the life sentences, the Special Court had said, were to run “concurrently”.

The Section of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act provides for punishment for organised crime and Section (1) (i) says, “If such offence has resulted in the death of any person, be punishable with death or imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to a fine, subject to a minimum fine of rupees one lac.”

Challenging the trial court order of conviction and sentence of life imprisonment, the convicts moved the Delhi High Court. They had also sought the suspension of sentence during the pendency of the appeal.

Highlighting the two life terms awarded to the convicts, Soumya’s mother has sought the top court’s intervention.

The prosecution has stated that Kapoor shot Vishwanathan with a country-made pistol while chasing her car to rob her. Shukla, Kumar, and Malik were accompanying him.

The trial court had also awarded the death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla and sentenced Malik to life imprisonment in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case. However, Kapoor’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the High Court, which upheld Malik’s life sentence.