Suspended Inspector General of Police R K Sharma and three others convicted in the nine-year-old Shivani Bhatnagar murder case are likely to be sentenced on Monday by a court.
NEW DELHI: Suspended Inspector General of Police R K Sharma and three others convicted in the nine-year-old Shivani Bhatnagar murder case are likely to be sentenced on Monday by a court here.
Sharma, a 1976-batch IPS officer, has been found guilty of conspiring with three others -- Pradeep Sharma, Sri Bhagwan and Satya Prakash -- to conspire to kill the Indian Express journalist on January 23, 1999.
Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri had on March 18 pronounced them guilty under section 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC. These penal provisions call for either life imprisonment or death penalty.
The court which heard the arguments on quantum of sentence for the convicts on March 20 had reserved its order for Monday.
Even as special public prosecutor S K Saxena demanded death penalty for R K Sharma and Pradeep - guilty of killing the scribe - it sought life imprisonment for Sri Bhagwan and Satya Prakash, who it said were intermediaries to the commission of the crime.
Countering the prosecution's demand for capital punishment for the suspended policeman, R K Sharma's counsel S P Minocha contended before the court that the murder did not fall in the "rarest of rare" category.
The counsel said that the reason of the victim being a media personality and the guilty a senior IPS officer did not justify death penalty for the convict.
Claiming that Sharma had an excellent service record and did not misuse his official position to commit the crime, Minocha contended that the crime did not shake the conscience of society -- a requirement under the law to deprive a convict of his life.
Shivani Bhatnagar -- a principal correspondent with the Indian Express daily -- was found murdered at her east Delhi flat on January 23, 1999.
The court in its over 100-page order has accepted the prosecution's plea that Sharma who was "intimate" with the victim, hatched her murder so as to get rid of his relationship with her.
While coming to its conclusion over Sharma's "intimate" relationship with the victim, the court found credence in the testimonies of Shivani's sister Sewanti and friend Sejal Shah.
The court, however, rejected the prosecution's contention that Sharma in his official capacity as OSD with the Prime Minister's Office had passed out classified documents to the deceased scribe.
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