A Delhi fast track court Tuesday convicted suspended IPS officer Ravi Kant Sharma in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case of 1999 along with three other co-accused.
While Sharma has been convicted under Sections 302, 120B and 201of the Indian Penal Code, three others—Sri Bhagwan, Satya Prakash and the alleged hired killer Pradeep Sharma—have been found guilty of murder and destruction of evidence. Addition Sessions Judge Rajendra Kumar Shastri, however, acquitted two other accused—Ved Prakash Sharma and Ved alias Kalu—for want of evidence.
The quantum of the sentence, which may range from life term to death penalty, will be pronounced March 20, Thursday.
Shivani Bhatnagar, a Principal Correspondent with the Indian Express was murdered on January 23, 1999, at her Navkunj Apartment in East Delhi.
The investigation into the case took over three years and the trial commenced in 2003. Out of the 209 prosecution witnesses, 51 had turned hostile during the trial which was heard by four judges. The prosecution, however, successfully managed to establish the chain of circumstantial evidence to achieve conviction in the case almost nine years after the murder. The court relied on the calls made by Sharma to the three men soon after the reporter was murdered. The court held that this was the strongest evidence to nail the four accused.
Six persons, including Sharma, had been charged under Section 302 (murder), 120 B (conspiracy), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 403 and 404 (dishonest misappropriation of property) of the of the Indian Penal Code.
The prosecution had claimed that Bhatnagar had first met Sharma when he was the OSD at the PMO during IK Gujral's tenure as Prime Minister. They later became romantically involved and Sharma showed some classified documents to her, including some details of the St Kitts case. But later, he decided to kill her when she threatened to ruin his career if he did not marry her.
Sharma plans to contest the judgment in the Delhi High Court, according to his lawyer SP Minocha.
Shivani was living in the apartment with her infant son when she was killed. The murderers allegedly strangled her with a wire and stabbed 10 times with a kitchen knife. Shivani's neighbours later discovered her body.
