A Delhi courtroom on Saturday sentenced 4 of the 5 convicts to 2 life imprisonments within the 2008 homicide of 25-year-old TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan.

The courtroom discovered the 4 accused responsible of homicide and awarded life imprisonment to Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar underneath sections 302 (homicide) and 34 (widespread intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), and sections pertaining to organised crime ensuing within the loss of life of any individual of the Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA). It directed that the 2 sentences run consecutively.

The courtroom refused to grant loss of life penalty observing that the act doesn’t fall inside the class of “rarest of rare”.

“The Court is of the view that the present case and the act of the convicts Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik and Ajay Kumar @ Ajay to murder the victim do not fall within the category of rare of rarest cases category in which the death penalty can be imposed,” it mentioned. The courtroom additionally imposed a effective of ₹1.25 lakh on every of the 4.

READ | Soumya Vishwanathan’s mother says ‘enduring life imprisonment, want convicts to suffer’

The courtroom sentenced the fifth convict, Ajay Sethi, to 3 years imprisonment underneath IPC Section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property) and imposed a effective of ₹7.25 lakh on him. The courtroom set off the sentence awarded to Sethi, noting that he had already undergone greater than 14 years of imprisonment within the case whereas the trial was occurring.

It ordered that ₹12 lakh of the whole effective quantity imposed on the convicts be paid to the sufferer’s household.

Vishwanathan, who labored at a Headlines Today (now India Today), was shot lifeless in her automotive on Nelson Mandela Road, in south Delhi, on her method dwelling from the workplace on September 30, 2008, between 3.25am and three.55am.

Police investigation discovered the motive to be theft. As they had been chasing her automotive in an try and rob her, the accused allegedly shot and killed Vishwanathan.

READ | 15 years after Soumya Vishwanathan’s murder, is Delhi safer for women now?

“We have been on the case for 15 years now… I am satisfied with the verdict, but not happy. Because nothing can bring my daughter back,” the sufferer’s mom, Madhavi Vishwanathan, advised HT after the courtroom’s judgment.

The counsel for Shukla and Malik, advocate Amit Kumar, mentioned the sentence was “challengeable”.

“It’s a zero-evidence case. Admittedly there was no participation in commission of murder. Before this incident, there is no criminal history, so the convictions and sentences are legally challengeable,” mentioned Kumar, including that the they are going to attraction the judgment within the Delhi excessive courtroom.

The first breakthrough in Vishwanathan’s homicide case got here in March 2009 after police recovered the weapon used within the homicide of 28-year-old BPO worker Jigisha Ghosh close to her home in Vasant Vihar, in the identical space the place Vishwanathan was killed.

READ | How Jigisha’s parents solved murder mystery of daughter, Soumya Vishwanathan

After their arrest in relation to Ghosh’s homicide, the accused — Malik, Kapoor and Shukla — disclosed their involvement in Vishwanathan’s homicide of their assertion to Delhi Police. Further police investigation revealed that the accused had a protracted file of violence and illegal actions and had been members of an organised crime syndicate led by Kapoor.

Delhi Police filed its first cost sheets underneath the IPC in June 2009. It filed a supplementary cost sheet in October 2009 earlier than the courtroom for offence underneath MCOCA.

In August 2016, Malik, Kapoor and Shukla had been convicted within the homicide of Ghosh. The courtroom awarded the loss of life penalty to Kapoor and Shukla, and sentenced Malik to life imprisonment. But the Delhi excessive courtroom in January 2018 commuted the loss of life sentences of the 2 convicts to life imprisonment, saying the circumstances of the killing couldn’t be deemed as “rarest of the rare”, whereas upholding Malik’s life imprisonment.

After a trial which lasted 15 years, the courtroom on October 18 noticed that the prosecution had efficiently confirmed by scientific proof, testimonies of witnesses, and Kapoor’s confessional assertion that he, together with Shukla, Malik and Kumar, had been responsible of Vishwanathan’s homicide.

It held that Kapoor, Shukla, Kumar and Malik had been responsible of homicide and convicted them underneath IPC sections 302 (homicide) and 34 (acts completed by a number of individuals in furtherance of widespread intention), and additional convicting them underneath part 3(1)(i) of MCOCA — conspiring to abetting, aiding in, or knowingly facilitating organised crime and receiving proceeds of organised crime.

It additionally held that the fifth accused, Sethi, had retained the offending car and abetted or knowingly facilitated the fee of organised crime and used to carry the property derived from the proceeds of organised crime. The courtroom thus convicted him underneath Section 411 of IPC and underneath sections 3(2) and three(5) of MCOCA. To make sure, underneath MCOCA, he’s sentenced to a interval already undergone.