A bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Manoj Jain has temporarily released Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar from custody while their appeals against their conviction and sentence are pending.
The bench mentioned that the convicts have already spent 14 years in custody. The high court had earlier instructed the Delhi Police to respond to the appeals filed by the four convicts on January 23.
Soumya Vishwanathan, a journalist with a prominent English news channel, was fatally shot on September 30, 2008, on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi while returning home from work.
On November 26, 2023, a special court had sentenced Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, and Ajay Kumar to two life terms under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 3(1)(i) (committing organized crime resulting in death) of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA).
Additionally, the court clarified that the sentences will run “consecutively.” The fifth convict, Ajay Sethi, was given three years of simple imprisonment for dishonestly receiving stolen property under section 411 of the IPC. However, this sentence was offset against the time Sethi had already served.
Kapoor’s counsel argued that he had been in custody for over 14 years and nine months and requested the court to suspend his sentence during the appeal process. A similar request was made by advocate Amit Kumar, representing Shukla, Malik, and Ajay Kumar.
While imposing the sentence, the trial court also fined each of them ₹1.25 lakh. Sethi was fined ₹7.25 lakh. Kapoor, Shukla, and Malik were also convicted of killing IT professional Jigisha Ghosh, and the trio confessed to Vishwanathan’s murder.
The Delhi Police stated that the motive behind Vishwanathan’s murder was robbery. Kapoor, Shukla, Kumar, and Malik were reportedly chasing her car to rob her when Kapoor shot her with a country-made pistol. The car used in the murder was recovered from Sethi.
The trial court had initially sentenced Kapoor and Shukla to death and Malik to life imprisonment in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case, but the high court later commuted the death sentences to life imprisonment while upholding Malik’s life sentence.
