NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to convicts in the 2008 murder of TV journalist, Soumya Vishwanathan, upon an appeal filed by the Delhi Police challenging the bail granted to them in the case.
A bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma issued sought a response from convicts -- Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar -- in the case.
The court tagged the plea by Delhi police along with an earlier appeal filed by Soumyas mother, Madhavi Vishwanathan.
The mother of the deceased opposed the bail and suspension of sentences awarded to four men serving life imprisonment for her daughter's murder.
The Delhi High Court had on February 12 suspended the sentences of Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar, and also granted them bail pending the outcome of their appeals challenging their conviction and sentence before it.
The HC had passed the order upon considering the fact that all the four convicts had already served 14 years and 9 months of imprisonment.
The prosecution claimed, TV journalist working in an English news channel was fatally shot in the early hours of September 30, 2008, on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi while she was returning home from work in her car. In the case, all the four convicts were apprehended and also all were convicted to two life imprisonments by the trial court in November, 2023.
The trial court had convicted them all under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 302 (Murder) and MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of liquor Organised Crime Act).
This trial court's order was challenged by the four convicts before the Delhi HC, which ordered suspension of their sentence.
