Zeenews Bureau
New Delhi: The Delhi High Court, Wednesday, acquitted former senior police officer RK Sharma and two others convicted by a lower court in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case.
The court observed that circumstantial evidence is not enough to convict the accused in the case and hence the three accused were acquitted citing lack of evidence.
Sharma, a former IPS officer, is serving life term in Tihar Jail and his accomplices Bhagwan, Pradeep Sharma and Satya Prakash for having killed Shivani, an Indian Express scribe, in her Navkunj Apartments flat at IP Extension in East Delhi on January 2, 1999.
Pradeep Sharma, who actually killed Shivani, would continue to be in jail as the life sentence awarded to him was upheld by the High Court. The other three were accused of hatching the conspiracy to kill the scribe.
"Accused R K Sharma, Sri Bhagwan Sharma and Satya Prakash
get the benefit of doubt. We, however, uphold the conviction
of Pradeep Sharma in the case," said a bench of justices B D
Ahmed and Manmohan Singh, deciding the appeals by the four
against their conviction and sentence in the murder case.
The lower court had on March 24, 2008, convicted four
persons including R K Sharma, who had once served as officer
on special duty in the Prime Minister`s office.
The trial court, however, had acquitted co-accused Dev
Prakash Sharma and Ved alias Kalu in the case.
