By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Thursday decided to hear in February Manu Sharma’s plea against his conviction in the April 1999 murder of ramp model Jessica Lall.
A bench of Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan, Justice R.V. Raveendran and Justice J.M. Panchal decided to begin a hearing on Manu Sharma’s plea from Feb 12, nearly a year after Sharma, son of former Haryana minister Venod Sharma, challenged his conviction and the life sentence for the sensational murder.
Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani, appearing for Sharma, told the court that his client was languishing in Tihar Jail for six years and needed to be heard urgently.
The court after much wrangling among counsel to various sides fixed Feb 12 to hear the case. Sharma approached the apex court to challenge the Delhi High Court ruling of Feb 2 last year.
He was sentenced to a life term Dec 20, 2006 by a division bench of the high court comprising Justice R.S. Sodhi and Justice P.K. Bhasin. The high court convicted him after setting aside the Feb 21, 2006 ruling of the trial court, which had acquitted him and eight other accused on grounds of lack of evidence.
Sharma moved the apex court contending that the high court partly convicted him under the “media pressure” and without any evidence against him as the trial court pointed out.
He has accused the media of browbeating the high court as well as his counsel through malicious and vicious campaign against him. He said the “media trial” prevented him from getting a free and fair hearing from the high court.
Pleading for quashing his conviction, he said the prosecution had not an iota of evidence against him. He said the prosecution’s witness Beena Ramani had categorically deposed that he was not the person whom she allegedly confronted and chased after the murder on the April 29, 1999 night at Qutub Colonnade restaurant in south Delhi.
He contended that it was never the case of the prosecution that Ramani was an eyewitness to the incident but the high court heavily relied on her testimony to convict him.
Sharma also pleaded to the apex court to release him on bail till the disposal of the appeal, considering that he had spent several years in jail.
The high court also convicted his friend Vikas Yadav, the son of former Rajya Sabha member D.P. Yadav, for destroying evidence in the case.
Vikas Yadav is currently facing trial for allegedly killing his sister’s close friend Nitish Katara at Ghaziabad in 2002.
Also convicted by the court on grounds of destroying evidence is Sharma’s friend Amarjit Singh Gill, a corporate executive. Vikas Yadav and Gill both were awarded four years’ jail term each.