New Delhi, December 18
Despite high pitched arguments by noted lawyer Ram Jethmalani in a bid to save Jessica Lall murder case key accused Manu Sharma, the Delhi High Court today convicted him for shooting down the ramp model in a crowded restaurant here with his licenced pistol seven years ago.

The court also convicted his two close friends — Vikas Yadav and Amardeep Singh Gill — for helping Manu in destroying the evidence after Jessica was shot at by him at the Tamarind Cafe on the intervening night of April 29-30, 1999 for refusing him drinks late at night as a bar tender but upheld the acquittal of six other co-accused.

Reversing the February 21 judgement of the trial judge S.L. Bhayana, who had acquitted all the nine accused, a Division Bench of Mr Justice R.S. Sodhi and Mr Justice P.K. Bhasin found Manu guilty of murder, criminal conspiracy and under the Arms Act and his friends Vikas and Amardeep for criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence.

The court fixed December 20 for pronouncement of sentence after hearing arguments on it. The six co-accused let off are: Manu’s uncle Shayam Sunder Sharma, former cricketer Yog Raj Singh, Harvinder Chopra, Raja Chopra, Vikas Gill and Alok Khanna, who either were related to Manu or were his close friends. Two accused — Ravinder Krishan Sudan and Dhanraj — were absconding and could not be prosecuted.

While Gill present in the court was immediately taken into custody by the police, the Bench said Manu be taken into custody where ever he was. Vikas Yadav is in jail in the Nitish Katara murder case.

The order of the then Sessions Judge Bhayana, who was promoted as a judge of the Delhi High Court later, was described by the Bench “immature assessment of material on record, self-contradictory, based on misreading of material facts and unsustainable.”

The Bench, which relied heavily on the eye-witness account of socialite Bina Ramani who ran the Cafe and her husband George Mailhot, termed them as “courageous” witnesses to identify Manu as the main culprit even when several other witnessed including other key-witness Shyan Munshi, a model, had turned hostile.

Allowing the police appeal, the court said that statements of Bina Ramani and her husband was corroborated by Ramani’s daughter Malini and several other circumstantial evidence to prove the involvement of the three in the crime.

The case is seen as a serious setback to Manu’s father, Mr Vinod Sharma, a former Haryana Minister who had to quit from the Hooda Ministry soon after the admission of the appeal by the High Court. Manu Sharma faced minimum sentence of life imprisonment and maximum as death penalty under Section 302 of IPC, Vikas Yadav and Gill faced minimum sentence of 10 years and maximum as life sentence under Section 201 for destruction of evidence depending upon how seriously their complicity had contributed in the murder.

Mr Justice Sodhi, writing the judgement for the Bench, said Bina Ramaini had clearly identified Manu Sharma, Amardeep Gill and Vikas Yadav to be present at the Tamarind Café at the time of the incidence and she saw Manu “firing the fatal shot, which hit Jessica Lall.”

The court rejected defence argument of the two-bullet theory and said there was evidence on record to prove that Manu had a licenced pistol of .22 bore which he has not produced to establish his “innocence and on the contrary has taken a false plea that the pistol, its ammunition and licence had been removed by the police on April 30, 1999, a day after the crime.”

The court found enough circumstantial evidence and statement of a constable to show how Vikas Yadav and Gill had removed Manu Sharma’s Tata Safari from the complex of Tamarind Café left behind by him in a bid to escape from there. It was done by them with the “intention to screen out” Manu of the crime.

Rejecting Mr Jethmalani’s argument that it was a “tall Sikh” who shot at Jessica, the court said the two-weapon theory appeared to be a “concoction and manipulation” of evidence, in particular that of Munshi, who introduced it in the trial court.