Soumya Vishwanathan Murder Case: Supreme Court Seeks Convicts’ Response To Delhi Police’s Plea Challenging Bail

GG News Bureau

New Delhi, 8th July. On Monday, the Supreme Court decided to review the Delhi Police’s petitions contesting the high court’s decision to grant bail to the four convicted individuals who were given life sentences in the murder of television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan.

According to news agency PTI, a division bench of Justices Bela M. Trivedi and Satish Chandra Sharma asked the prisoners to respond to the police’s arguments and linked them to Soumya’s mother’s ongoing appeal against the bail decision.

Madhavi Vishwanathan, the mother of Soumya, had petitioned the supreme court to overturn the February 12 ruling of the Delhi High Court, which had stayed the prisoners’ sentence and allowed them bail while their appeal against their conviction and sentencing was pending. The individuals found guilty are Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, Ajay Kumar, and Ravi Kapoor. It should be noted that Shukla, Malik, and Kapoor were also found guilty in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case.

While driving home from work on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi in the early hours of September 30, 2008, Vishwanathan, an English news channel employee, was shot and killed. A special court this year found Kapoor, Shukla, Malik, and Kumar guilty of murder and causing death by organized crime, and they were all given double life sentences.
It was explicitly stated by the trial court that the sentences would be served “consecutively”. The convicted men went to the Delhi High Court, contesting the decision of the trial court. Additionally, they had submitted applications asking for a sentence suspension while the appeal was pending. The top court pointed out that the offenders had spent 14 years in custody even though it granted them freedom. Soumya’s mother has requested the intervention of the highest court, pointing out the two life sentences given to the guilty.