By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday issued notice to underworld don Om Prakash Srivastav alias Babloo Srivastava on a Delhi government plea challenging his acquittal by the Delhi High Court in the murder of businessman Lalit Suneja 15 years ago.
A bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan also issued notice to his accomplice Nitin Gunwant Shah, who had allegedly hired Srivastava to kill Suneja.
A division bench of Justices R.S. Sodhi and P.K. Bhasin of the Delhi High Court had acquitted the two due to lack of evidence, setting aside a trial court verdict that had sentenced them to life for hatching the murder conspiracy.
While acquitting the duo, the high court had ruled, "It appears that the trial court has based its judgement only on an assumption that the appellants (Srivastava and Shah) are guilty of conspiracy to murder the businessman."
"In the totality of the circumstances, we find that there is nothing on the record to show that any of the two appellants had anything to do with the murder of Suneja," it added.
Suneja was allegedly shot dead by Manish Dixit and Virender Pant, the two killers allegedly hired by Babloo, while he was returning to his Shakarpur residence in east Delhi after offering prayers at a nearby temple on Aug 2, 1992.
Dixit and Pant had died during trial.
Babloo, who divides his time among various jails in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh and faces trial in several cases, was extradited from Singapore in August 1995.