Respond to petition filed by Jessica Lal killer Manu Sharma, Delhi HC asks Government

The Delhi HC asked the AAP govt on Thursday to reply to a plea by Jessica Lal murder convict Manu Sharma, serving life imprisonment, seeking premature release. Justice Brijesh Sethi asked the Delhi govt to file a status report in the matter along with the relevant records of Sentence Review Board (SRB).

The court listed the matter for further hearing on Mar 30. Sharma has sought a direction to set aside the Sept 19, 2019 order of the competent authority which had accepted the July 19 last year recommendations of Sentence Review Board (SRB) rejecting his early release plea.

The petition, filed through advocate Amit Sahni, sought Sharma’s release saying the authorities rejected his plea in an unfair, arbitrary & whimsical manner. It contended that Sharma was being victimised by the State & despite having undergone 23 years (with remission) in jail, his case was rejected four times. It claimed that he has been rewarded appreciations for his efforts through his NGO ‘Siddhartha Vashishtha Charitable Trust’.

“The petitioner (Sharma) has had an unblemished record throughout incarceration & there has been nothing adverse against him. His reformative actions & efforts for helping children of jail inmates have been appreciated by the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi as well as the Division Bench of HC of Delhi,” the plea said.

Sharma, son of former Union minister Venod Sharma, was convicted & sentenced to life imprisonment by the HC in Dec 2006 for killing Jessica Lal in 1999. The trial court had acquitted him, but the Delhi HC had reversed the order & the Supreme Court had upheld his life sentence in April 2010

The fateful night of Jessica’s murder

Jessica Lal was shot dead by Sharma after she had refused to serve him liquor at Tamarind Court restaurant owned by socialite Bina Ramani at Qutub Colonnade in south Delhi’s Mehrauli area on the night of Apr 30, 1999. 

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