M A I N   N E W S

Tandoor case
HC upholds death for Sushil
Legal Correspondent

New Delhi, February 19
The death sentence to former Youth Congress general secretary Sushil Sharma for the brutal murder of his wife Naina Sahani 12 years ago and then cutting her body into pieces and burning them in a “tandoor” of his restaurant, was confirmed by the Delhi High Court saying it was an act of “butchery” committed by a “power- drunk” man.

While deciding the case sent by Sessions Judge G.P. Thareja for confirmation of the death penalty awarded to Sharma on November 7, 2003, and an appeal filed by him against it, a Bench of Mr Justice R.S. Sodhi and Mr Justice P.K. Bhasin upheld the capital punishment, holding that there was no “infirmity” in the trial judge’s verdict.

The Bench, which recently had given verdicts in two other high profile cases (Priyadarshani Mattoo and Jessica Lall murders), said the manner in which the crime was committed by the Youth Congress leader “leaves no room for compassion”.

“He had no value for human life and it would be a mockery of justice if his appeal is allowed,” the court said, also dismissing his plea of “prejudice” against the trial court due to extensive media coverage to the case.

The court said the crime had “shocked the moral conscience of society as well as the judicial conscience” and the media had done its job well in highlighting the case and the investigation of it.

The court noted that Sharma had shown no remorse for the brutal killing, which was evident from the fact that the body of the victim was chopped into pieces and then burnt in a “tandoor” of the Baggia restaurant at the government’s Hotel Ashok Yatri Niwas, then run by him on contract.

Applying the principle of “rarest of rare” cases for awarding the death sentence to an accused of heinous crimes as laid down by the Supreme Court, the Bench said there could not be a “better” case than this to award the punishment of the death penalty for a heinous crime like the one committed by him.

According to the prosecution case, Sharma suspecting relations of Naina, also a local Congress activist, with another local leader of the party, had shot her dead on the intervening night of July 2-3, 1995, at his Gole Market residence and then cut her body into pieces and took it to the open air Baggia restaurant in the high-security New Delhi zone only a few hundred meters away from Parliament House.

On seeing flames rise in the open air restaurant, an alert Delhi Police constable on beat duty jumped the boundary wall to find out whether there was any fire. This alerted Sharma, who fled the scene, leaving his manager Keshav Kumar there who was later arrested by the police.

Keshav Kumar was awarded seven-year imprisonment by the trial court for helping Sharma in destroying evidence, but was released soon after the verdict as he had undergone the sentence by remaining in judicial custody for over eight years.