Court to pronounce verdict in journalist Soumya Vishwanathan murder case on October 18

A local court here on Friday reserved its judgment in the 2008 murder case of TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan for October 18.

Additional Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey directed all the accused to be produced before the court when he delivers the verdict. “Be put up for judgment on October 18,” Mr. Pandey said.

During the proceedings, the judge noted that one of the accused, Ajay Sethi, wanted to make a written submission regarding additional arguments.

“Parties are at liberty to file written submissions, if any, by October 14,” the judge said. The court noted on October 6 that arguments by the defence and the prosecution were complete, and posted the matter for Friday for additional arguments or clarifications.

Vishwanathan was shot dead on September 30, 2008, while returning home from work in her car around 3.30 a.m. The police had claimed that robbery was the motive behind her killing. Five persons — Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, Ajay Kumar and Ajay Sethi — were arrested on murder charge and are in custody since March 2009.

The police had invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against the accused. Malik and two others — Ravi Kapoor and Amit Shukla — were earlier convicted in the 2009 killing of IT executive Jigisha Ghosh.

Recovery of the weapon used in Ghosh's killing had led to the murder case of the journalist getting cracked, the police said.

The trial court had awarded death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla and life term to Malik in the Jigisha murder case in 2017.

The following year, however, the Delhi High Court had commuted the death sentence of Kapoor and Shukla to life imprisonment and upheld the life term of Malik in the Jigisha murder case.

Soumya Vishwanathan (25), who was working with India Today, was found dead in her car on Nelson Mandela Marg in south Delhi on September 30, 2008. The breakthrough in the case came in 2009 during the investigation in the murder of BPO employee Ghosh when one of the accused confessed to his involvement in the journalist’s murder.