By IANS
Dehradun : Uttar Pradesh legislator Amarmani Tripathi and his wife Madhumani were Wednesday handed down life sentences by a special court here for the murder of poetess Madhumita Shukla.
District and Sessions Judge V.B. Rai awarded life terms to Amarmani, a former state minister, Madhumani, their nephew Rohit Chaturvedi and an acquaintance Santosh Roy. The court also imposed a Rs.50,000 fine on each of the convicts.
The judge however acquitted Prakash Pandey, who had accompanied Santosh Roy — who shot Madhumita dead — saying that the evidence was insufficient.
Madhumita, 26, was found dead at her Lucknow flat May 9, 2003. She was killed at the behest of Madhumani, who was opposed to Madhumita’s alleged affair with her husband.
A post-mortem examination report had revealed that Madhumita was pregnant at the time of her death. The murder case had hit the headlines, as Amarmani was a powerful and influential political leader in the state.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), which probed the case, had demanded death penalty for all the convicts but the court said the case did not fall in the ‘rarest of the rare’ category and asserted that the four deserved life imprisonment.
“We had demanded the highest penalty for all the accused, but are satisfied with the judgement,” said Raj Mohan Chand, the CBI counsel. He added that they would examine the court verdict and decide on appealing against Pandey’s acquittal.
Madhumita’s younger sister, Nidhi, expressed her dissatisfaction over the judgement and vowed to fight until the accused got death penalty.
“I respect the court’s verdict. I had lots of hope from the court. Amarmani tried all his tactics to get out of the case, but the fight has just begun. He should be kept in jail and should not be let out at any cost,” Nidhi, who was among the key witnesses in the case, told reporters outside the court.
“Amarmani should have been awarded death penalty as he is accused of double murder. He tried all tactics to influence the witnesses and the trial proceeding to save himself.
“We are also worried that now Amarmani may conspire to kill me while being lodged in the jail,” she added.
Nidhi has penned her sister’s story in a book titled “Meri Behan Ka Katl” (My Sister’s Murder). “Now that the court verdict has come, I will give final touches to the book and release it,” Nidhi said.
Meanwhile, Tripathis’ lawyer Vijay Vikram said they would appeal in the High Court against the special court’s decision.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court had transferred the trial from the Uttar Pradesh capital Lucknow to Dehradun (Uttarakhand) after Nidhi moved a petition before a bench of Justice Ashok Bhan and Justice Dalveer Bhandari as she feared Amarmani would use his political clout in the state to influence the case.
In its order, the bench said the petitioner had made out a prima facie bona fide and fit case for transfer of the trial outside Uttar Pradesh.
The bench also requested the Uttaranchal (Uttarakhand) High Court chief justice to appoint a special judge to exclusively adjudicate the case on a day-to-day basis and complete the trial within six months.
Amarmani began his career as a bodyguard of one of Uttar Pradesh’s underworld dons and later took to politics and became a minister in successive regimes. He had a number of criminal cases pending against him even when he was first made minister in the 1990s. He had also amassed huge properties along the India-Nepal border in Maharajganj district.
While he entered politics as a Congressman, he switched sides at the drop of the hat. From Congress, he broke away to join the Loktantrik Congress Party and become minister in a coalition with the Bharatiya Janata Party. Subsequently he joined the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) but managed to get a Samajwadi Party ticket when Mayawati decided to dump him over his involvement in Madhumita’s murder.