Madhavi Viswanathan, mother of slain TV journalist Soumya Viswanathan, has approached the Supreme Court to challenge the bail granted to four convicts serving life imprisonment for her daughter’s 2008 murder.
Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar had their sentences suspended by the Delhi High Court on February 12. The bail was granted pending the outcome of their appeals against conviction and sentence.
Kapoor, Shukla, and Malik, convicted in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case as well, remain incarcerated.
Soumya Vishwanathan, a journalist with a leading English news channel, was shot dead on September 30, 2008, while driving home on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi.
A bench of justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal at the Supreme Court is expected to hear Madhavi Viswanathan’s plea.
The Delhi High Court, in granting relief, took into account the convicts’ 14 years in custody.
In November 2023, a special court sentenced Kapoor, Shukla, Malik, and Kumar to two life terms under IPC Section 302 (murder) and Section 3(1)(i) of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA). Their sentences were ordered to run consecutively.
Ajay Sethi, the fifth convict, received three years of imprisonment under IPC Section 411 but was given credit for time served.
Kapoor, Shukla, Malik, and Kumar were also convicted in the murder of IT professional Jigisha Ghosh. They confessed to Vishwanathan’s murder, attributing the weapon’s recovery to them.
Delhi Police cited robbery as the motive behind Vishwanathan’s killing.
The trial court initially sentenced Kapoor and Shukla to death and Malik to life imprisonment for Ghosh’s murder. The high court later commuted Kapoor and Shukla’s sentences to life imprisonment while affirming Malik’s sentence.
Prosecutors alleged that Kapoor shot Vishwanathan with a country-made pistol during a robbery attempt. Shukla, Kumar, and Malik were reportedly accompanying Kapoor during the incident.