The Delhi High Court on Thursday upheld the conviction of former Municipal Corporation of Delhi councillor Sharda Jain, her brother Rajkumar Jain and their co-conspirators in the Atma Ram Gupta murder case of 2002.
However, a Division Bench of the Court comprising Justice Pradeep Nandrajog and Indermeet Kaur acquitted five other accused in the case, including two alleged contract killers, Pushpender and Nirvikar, for want of evidence.
The trial court had in 2006 sentenced the convicts -- Sharda Jain, Rajkumar Jain and Roshan Singh and Rajinder to life imprisonment.
It had also awarded life imprisonment to Pushpender and Nirvikar whom the High Court acquitted on their appeals against the lower court judgment.
The other three who were acquitted by the Bench are Rakesh Kumar, Sripal Singh Raghav and Satender Kumar.
The trial court had sentenced the three to three years’ imprisonment each for allegedly helping the accused persons in destruction of evidence in the case. The three are former Uttar Pradesh police personnel.
Atma Ram Gupta was also a councillor from Tri Nagar in North Delhi at the time of his murder.
In her appeal, Ms. Jain submitted that though she was present in Ghaziabad on the day Atma Ram was murdered, but she was not involved as it was not possible for her to do all that was alleged by the police and be back in Delhi in such a short span of time.
Atma Ram Gupta was gunned down in the presence of Ms. Jain at Chhajjupur village in Ghaziabad.
According to the prosecution, the motive behind the murder was “irreconcilable differences’’ between Atma Ram Gupta and Sharda Jain over the alleged relationship of the former with another woman councillor.
Sharda Jain was allegedly in love with Atma Ram and felt insecure because of his proximity to the other woman councillor, the prosecution alleged.
