Writ Petition (Crl) no. 3798/2018
Delhi High Court
BENCH: Hon’ble Siddharth Mridul J., Hon’ble Sangita Sehgal J.
DATE OF JUDGEMENT: 21st December 2018
RELEVANT SECTIONS:
- Section 302 of IPC (punishment for murder)
- Section 120B of IPC (Punishment for criminal conspiracy)
- Section 201 of IPC (Causing disappearance of evidence of the offence, or giving false information to screen offender)
BACK STORY
Sushil Sharma and Naina Sahni Sharma, a married couple was working for Delhi Youth Congress. But even after marriage, Naina Sharma continued to have relations with Matloob Karim, who was also a worker of the Congress Party. Sushil Sharma suspected of having an extramarital relationship of his wife and thus he put restrictions on her movements. On 2nd July 1995, enraged Sushil Sharma fatally shot Naina. He took her body to his restaurant called Bagia via his Maruti car and try to dispose of it with the help of one of the members of restaurant staff, Keshav Kumar. They put her body in tandoor (clay oven) in a kitchen to burn.
On the night of same day at around 11.00 p.m., HC Kunju and Home guard Chander Pal were patrolling in the Ashoka Road, Western Court Area, Delhi. They saw the Smoke spiralling from the kitchen of a restaurant Bagia restaurant. As they went near tandoor they noticed a charred female body inside it. The accused Keshav Kumar got arrested, but they didn’t notice the presence of accused Sushil Kumar on the scene. After the disclosure made by Keshav Kumar, the police searched the resident flat of accused Sushil Kumar. They found some cartridges, a lead bullet, a ply having a hole and air pistol, which were seized by Ballistic Expert. The police also found the abandoned Maruti car with dried blood in the dicky.
The accused was arrested in Bangalore with his .32 bore revolver and car keys. The accused gave a statement that from the evening of 1st July to 6th July he was at Tirupati Balaji and then he went to Madras and then some police officers brought him to the Bangalore and showed his arrest there.
POSTMORTEM REPORT
The post-mortem examination of the deceased was conducted by Dr Sarangi. He opined that the cause of death was hemorrhagic shock due to ante-mortem injuries and the burn injuries noticed on the body were due to post-mortem burning of the victim.
Another post-mortem examination was conducted by a team of three doctors headed by Dr. Bharat Singh. During this examination, the body was subjected to the X-ray examination and two metallic pieces were extracted from the head and the neck region of the deceased, which were later found to be lead bullets. The second post-mortem report clearly states that the burns were post-mortem while the firearm injuries were ante-mortem and the cause of death was a coma, due to firearm injury to the head. This report also states that no opinion could be given about the cut injury as dislocation noticed on the body whether due to the burning of the dead body. Also, there was no recovery of any sharp weapon that could suggest that accused Sushil Sharma had cut the deceased.
FORENSIC REPORT
The Ballistic Expert, Roop Singh examined the lead bullets and cartridge cases, which were recovered from the flat of accused Sushil Sharma and the two lead bullets, which were extracted from skull and neck of the deceased. He also examined the live cartridges and .32 Arminius revolver, which were recovered from the possession of the accused Sushil Sharma at Bangalore. According to the ballistic report, the .32 cartridge cases and one lead bullet, which were recovered from flat of accused Sushil Sharma and the two lead bullets which were extracted from skull and neck of the deceased had been fired from the same .32 Arminius revolver.
JUDGEMENT
In 2003, the court framed charges against accused Sushil Sharma and Keshav Kumar for committing offences punishable under section 302, 120B, 201 of IPC, which included crime of criminal conspiracy to cause the disappearance of the evidence of the murder of Naina Sharma, but later on, the accused Keshav Kumar had been acquitted of an offence punishable under section 302 and 120B of IPC. In 2013, the death sentence awarded to the main accused Sushil Sharma was commuted to life imprisonment because he didn’t have any criminal antecedent and it was not a crime against society.
On 21st December 2018, the Delhi High Court allowed the writ petition and ordered the release of Sushil Kumar Sharma.