The Delhi government's Sentence Review Board had this year rejected his plea along with the requests of a hundred other prisoners.
The Delhi High Court ordered on Friday the release of Sushil Sharma, a youth Congress leader who was convicted of killing his wife Naina Sahni and chopping the body into pieces before trying to burn them in a tandoor of a popular restaurant on the night of July 2, 1995.
The court said he should be released because he has served the maximum sentence for his crime. Sharma, now 56, had requested the court for release as he had been in jail since 1995. In his petition, he said he had already served the maximum prescribed sentence.
The Delhi government's Sentence Review Board had this year rejected his plea along with the requests of a hundred other prisoners.
The Delhi police had filed charges against Sharma 20 days after the crime on July 27, 1995. The first autopsy of Naina Sahni, conducted at Lady Hardinge Medical College, was misleading, as it said Sahni's death was caused by burn injuries.
A second autopsy carried out on orders from Delhi's Lieutenant Governor changed the direction of the case. The postmortem report submitted by doctors from three different hospitals stated that two bullets were lodged in Sahni's body, in the head and neck, leading to a lower court sentencing Sharma to death.
Sharma appealed against the lower court verdict in the high court but the court upheld the lower court's death sentence. He then appealed to the Supreme Court, which upheld his conviction but commuted his death sentence to life imprisonment on October 8, 2013.
Crime Sheet
- July 2, 1995: Police recover burnt body of Naina Sahni from Baghiya restaurant in Ashok Yatri Niwas (now Sanghrila Hotel). Arrests restaurant manager Keshav Kumar
- July 10: Police arrest Sushil Kumar Sharma in Bengaluru
- May 9, 1996: Trial court frames charges of murder, criminal conspiracy and destruction of evidence against five people
- November 3: Court convicts Sharma
- November 7: Sharma sentenced to death, restaurant manager Keshav gets seven years rigorous imprisonment
- December 2003: Sharma moves Delhi High Court challenging trial court judgement
- February 19, 2007: High Court upholds death sentence of Sharma
- October 8, 2013: Supreme Court commutes the death penalty to life imprisonment
- December 21, 2018: High Court orders “forthwith” release of Sharma
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