NEW DELHI : On July 8, the Supreme Court will hear Delhi Police’s Special Leave Petition (Appeal) challenging the bail granted by Delhi HC to four life convicts in the 2008 TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan murder case.As per the Supreme Court’s cause list, a bench led by Justice Bela M Trivedi would hear on July 8, Monday, the appeal of Delhi police. After a long 50-day summer vacation, the apex court is scheduled to open on July 8.The appeal of the Delhi police was admitted by the Supreme Court registry on June 12, 2024.Earlier on April 22, 2024, a bench led by Justice Trivedi had also issued notice to Delhi police and the four convicts — Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar — on the appeal filed by Soumya’s mother, Madhavi Vishwanathan, challenging the release of the four convicts.Madhvi opposed the bail granted and suspension of sentences for four men serving life imprisonment for her daughter’s murder in 2008.Challenging the Delhi High Court’s order granting bail and suspension of sentences to all four convicts serving two life imprisonments for 2008 TV journalist, Soumya’s murder case, her mother, Madhvi, moved the Supreme Court in April this year seeking reversal of this order.Soumya’s mother, Madhavi, has filed the Special Leave Petition (SLP) in the top court.On February 12, the Delhi High Court suspended the sentences of Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Singh Malik, and Ajay Kumar and also granted them bail pending the outcome of their appeals challenging their conviction and sentence before it.It was challenged by Madhvi before the top court.The Delhi HC passed the order of their suspension of the sentences and granting bail to all four convicts, after considering the fact that all four convicts had already served 14 years and 9 months of imprisonment. According to the prosecution, on September 30, 2008, a TV journalist working for an English news channel, Soumya Vishwanathan, was fatally shot in the early hours of September 30, 2008, on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi while she was returning home from work in her car. In the case, all four convicts were apprehended and also all were convicted of two life imprisonments by the trial court in November last year.The trial court had convicted them all under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 302 (Murder) and MCOCA (Maharashtra Control of Liquor Organised Crime Act).This trial court’s order was challenged by the four convicts before the Delhi HC, which was hearing their appeal against their convictions and sentences. In between, the HC granted them bail and suspended their sentences until their appeal was completely heard by it.
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