Shivani murder: Life or death for R K Sharma?

New Delhi, Mar 24: A Delhi Court will pronounce the quantum of sentence to former Haryana cadre IPS officer R K Sharma and three others, who were convicted in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case.

Last week, the court had held R K Sharma alongwith three others -- Pradeep Sharma, Sri Bhagwan and Satya Prakash -- for murdering the Indian Express journalist at her East-Delhi flat on January 23 1999. Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri had pronounced them guilty under Section 302 (murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.

These penal provisions call for either life imprisonment or death penalty.

The court had acquitted Ved Prakash Sharma and Ved alias Kalu.

The court which heard the arguments on quantum of sentence for the convicts on March 20 had reserved its order for today.

Even as special public prosecutor S K Saxena demanded death penalty for R K Sharma and Pradeep - guilty of killing the scribe - it sought life imprisonment for Sri Bhagwan and Satya Prakash, who it said were intermediaries to the commission of the crime.

Countering the prosecution's demand for capital punishment for the suspended policeman, R K Sharma's counsel S P Minocha contended before the court that the murder did not fall in the 'rarest of rare' category.

The counsel said that the reason of the victim being a media personality and the guilty a senior IPS officer did not justify death penalty for the convict.

It took the police over three years to crack the case. The trial has seen four judges and 209 witnesses.

ANI