Jigisha convict challenges his death sentence

NEW DELHI: A death row convict in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case has moved the Delhi High Court challenging his conviction and the sentence awarded to him by

NEW DELHI: A death row convict in the 2009 Jigisha Ghosh murder case has moved the Delhi High Court challenging his conviction and the sentence awarded to him by the trial court.

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Amit Shukla, who along with accused Ravi Kapoor was handed the death penalty, has approached the high court saying that the trial court awarded him the capital punishment by “wrongly holding that the case falls in the category of rarest of rare”.

The trial court on July 14 held Kapoor, Shukla and Baljeet Malik guilty on various counts, including the murder of 28-year-old IT executive Jigisha seven years ago.

The court, while sentencing Kapoor and Shukla to death on August 22, said the girl was killed in a “cold-blooded, inhuman and cruel manner” and “brutally mauled to death”.

The third offender Baljeet Malik was given reprieve from the gallows for his good conduct in jail. Malik has already challenged his conviction and sentence of life imprisonment by the trial court.

While seeking setting aside of his conviction and order on sentence, Shukla said the trial court has committed an error by awarding death penalty simply on the basis of biased jail/probation report.

“It has also not been noticed that for the similar offence one of the convicts has been sentenced for life imprisonment,” the appeal, which would come up for hearing on September 15, said.

Meanwhile, the trial court, which has awarded death to two of the accused has sent the case file to the Delhi High Court for confirmation of the capital punishment.

It is mandatory for a trial court to refer a death penalty case to a high court for confirmation of sentence, within 30 days of the pronouncement of the verdict.

28-year-old Ghosh left her office in Noida but did not return home, though the office cab dropped her outside her apartment block. Ghosh was an operations manager with Hewitt Associate Pvt Ltd.

The three men robbed her of her gold jewellery, two mobile phones, and debit and credit cards. Her body was found near Surajkund in Haryana, 20km from her Vasant Vihar home.