Soumya Vishwanathan Murder Case: Sentencing Hearing Set For November 7

Delhi's Saket court on Thursday posted the matter on November 7 for the consideration of affidavits, reports, and arguments related to the sentencing in the 2008 Soumya Vishwanathan murder case.

Vishwanathan, who was working with a leading English news channel, was shot dead in the early hours of September 30, 2008 on south Delhi's Nelson Mandela Marg while she was returning home from work. Police claimed the motive was robbery.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Ravindra Kumar Pandey noted that some documents, including the pre-sentencing report (PSR) by the probationary officer along with the affidavits of the five convicts had not been filed.

Directing that the reports and affidavits be prepared, the judge listed the matter for further proceedings on November 7.

On October 18, the court convicted Ravindra Kumar Pandey, Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik and Ajay Kumar for the crime.

Furthermore, the court has called upon the state to provide an affidavit elucidating the socio-economic backgrounds of the accused. It is essential to note that the murder charge was not pursued against Ajay Sethi, as his involvement was primarily linked to the vehicle theft and his association with a criminal organisation.

The tragic incident occurred on September 30, 2008, when Soumya Vishwanathan was fatally shot while returning home from work in her car around 3:30 AM.

Five individuals - Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, Ajay Kumar, and Ajay Sethi - were taken into custody for her murder and have been detained since March 2009. The police invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against the accused.

Notably, Malik, along with Ravi Kapoor and Amit Shukla, had previously been convicted in the 2009 killing of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh. The recovery of the weapon used in Jigisha Ghosh's murder had played a pivotal role in cracking the Soumya Vishwanathan murder case, as the police reported.

In the initial trial, Kapoor and Shukla were sentenced to death, while Malik received a life term in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case in 2017. However, the following year, the high court commuted the death sentences of Kapoor and Shukla to life imprisonment and upheld Malik's life sentence in the Jigisha murder case. This development marked a significant turn in the legal proceedings.