Two out of three convicts have been awarded death sentence and one convict sentenced to life imprisonment in IT executive Jigisha Ghosh murder case.
Ravi Kapoor, Baljeet and Amit Shukla were convicted for murdering and robbing Jigisha in Delhi in 2009. The Delhi Police were seeking death penalty for them saying they killed her for “pleasure” and showed no remorse.
Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav reserved the order on the sentence after arguments concluded and a pre-sentencing report (PSR) was submitted by probationary officer on 20 August.
“Pre-sentencing report received...Copy has been supplied to counsel for the convicts. Arguments heard. Order on sentence to be pronounced on Monday,” the judge said after hearing the arguments of prosecution, convicts and perusing the pre-sentencing report which gave details about the background of the guilty persons.
However, the judge ordered that the report be kept confidential.
28-year-old Jigisha, working as an operations manager in a management consultancy firm, was abducted and killed on 18 March, 2009 after she was dropped by her office cab around 0400 hours near her home in Vasant Vihar area of South Delhi.
Her body was recovered three days later from a place near Surajkund in Haryana, police had said.
Seeking death sentence for the convicts, Special Public Prosecutor Rajiv Mohan had argued that they had abducted Jigisha, robbed her, killed her and used her debit card for shopping. CCTV footage showed that they felt no remorse for their act.
There was no provocation. There is no mitigating factor in the matter. It was murder for pleasure. The footage shows they had no remorse at all, which is an aggravating factor.Rajiv Mohan, Special Public Prosecutor
Rebutting the arguments of prosecution, defence counsel sought minimum sentence of life for the convicts, contending that they did not have any previous criminal involvement and were young at the time of the incident.
Advocate Amit Kumar, appearing for the convicts, argued that his client has already spent over seven years in jail and maintained good conduct.
The counsel for convict Ravi Kapoor sought leniency for his client saying he suffered from a life threatening disease and came from a poor background.
(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)