The
Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on the plea filed by the mother of the
slain television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan against the Delhi High Court
order granting bail to four convicts serving life imprisonment in the 2008
murder case.
A
bench of Justices Bela M Trivedi and Pankaj Mithal asked the Delhi government
and four convicts to file responses on the plea in four weeks.
Soumya's mother, Madhavi Vishwanathan, has
approached the top court, challenging the Delhi High Court's February 12 order
where it suspended the convicts' sentence and granted bail to them till the
pendency of their appeal challenging their conviction and sentence.
The
convicts are Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar, out
of whom Kapoor, Shukla, and Malik were also convicted in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh
murder case.
Vishwanathan,
who worked with an English news channel, was shot dead 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.
Last
year, a special court awarded double life terms to Kapoor, Shukla, Malik, and
Kumar under Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section
3(1)(i) (committing organized crime resulting in the death of any person) of
the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).
The
court had made it clear that the sentences would run "consecutively".
Challenging
the trial court order of their conviction and sentence of life imprisonment,
the convicts moved to the Delhi High Court. They had also filed applications
seeking suspension of sentence during the pendency of the appeal.
The
High Court while granting relief to the convicts, had noted that they have been
in custody for 14 years.
Highlighting
the two life terms awarded to the convicts, Soumya's mother has sought the top
court's intervention.
As
per the prosecution, Kapoor shot Vishwanathan with a country-made pistol while
chasing her car to rob her. Shukla, Kumar, and Malik were accompanying him.
The trial court had also awarded the death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla
and sentenced Malik to life imprisonment in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case.
However, Kapoor's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment by the High
Court, which upheld Malik's life sentence.