New Delhi: The Supreme Court has agreed to
hear the widow of businessman Pradeep Goyal, shot dead in
Connaught Place here in March 1997 by a Delhi police team
mistaking him to be a gangster, during adjudication of the
appeal of the team leader and former ACP SS Rathi against his
conviction in the case.
A bench of justices P Sathasivam and BS Chauhan
allowed Goyal`s widow Neema to be a party in the appeal filed
by Rathi, agreeing with her submission that it would be in
the interest of justice to the victim.
"If the applicant (Goyal) is not impleaded as party
respondent in the aforesaid criminal appeal, then irreparable
loss and injury may be caused to the present applicant," Neema
Goyal had submitted in her application filed through advocate
Anil Karnwal.
Pradeep was one of the two innocent persons killed in the
encounter carried out by the Delhi Police on March 31, 1997.
Rathi, who had headed the police team during the
encounter, was convicted for murder and sentenced to life
imprisonment by a Delhi court in October 2007.
The Delhi High Court had in September 2009 upheld the
trial court ruling, dismissing the appeals filed by Rathi and
other convicts in the case.
PTI
