Jessica Lal murder: Manu Sharma free after 21 years

Confirming the release, Sharma’s lawyer Amit Sahni said the lieutenant governor had accepted the recommendations of the sentence review board, which met on May 11.

Manu Sharma, who was serving a life term after being convicted of the murder of model Jessica Lal in 1999, was released from Tihar jail on Monday evening. His release, along with that of 18 other convicts, was approved by lieutenant governor (LG) Anil Baijal.

Manu Sharma has served around 16 years of actual sentencing. According to jail records, with time earned for good conduct (remission), he has completed 23 years.

Confirming the release, Sharma’s lawyer Amit Sahni said the lieutenant governor had accepted the recommendations of the sentence review board, which met on May 11. A spokesperson from the L-G’s office said the sentence review board recommended Sharma’s release without any disagreement, and that the L-G concurred with the recommendations approved by state home minister Satyendar Jain.

Any convict -- barring one found guilty of heinous crimes such as rape and murder, murder and robbery, murder in cases of terrorism and murder while out on parole -- who has completed 14 years in prison is eligible for early release.

Sharma has served around 16 years of actual sentencing. According to jail records, with time earned for good conduct (remission), he has completed 23 years.

The prison’s director-general Sandeep Goel confirmed that Sharma was released on Monday. Since 2018, , Sharma was lodged in the open jail of the prison. Open jail prisoners are allowed to step out for work but have to return in the evening and spend the night inside the prison complex. They are housed in flats within the prison complex. HT first reported this development on April 22, 2018, and that it was possibly the penultimate step towards his release.

In November 2019, Sahni, Sharma’s advocate, approached the Delhi high court seeking his release. In his plea, he had said that despite spending 23 years in jail (with remission added), and a record of good conduct in prison, the sentence review board denied his client’s release on four separate occasions in an “unfair and unlawful manner”.

The Delhi high court then asked the board to consider Sharma’s case for release in its next meeting, which took place on May 11. The seven-member board consists of the state home minister as its chairman, the prison’s director-general, state home secretary, state law secretary, a district judge, the government’s chief probationary officer, and a joint commissioner-rank officer of Delhi Police.

Siddharth Vashishta,43, better known by his alias Manu Sharma, shot dead model Jessica Lal, who was tending an unlicensed bar at a private party on April 30, 1999, after she refused to serve him a drink well past midnight. He is the son of Haryana politician Venod Sharma.

Last month, after SRB recommended Sharma’s release to the lieutenant governor, Lal’s sister Sabrina said that she had forgiven Sharma and that he had served his time for the crime. Sabrina Lal also said that it was time for her to move on. “My fight was always for justice. We got justice. If he is released. I have no problem,” she said. When contacted on Tuesday, Lal said: “The past is behind me. Our fight was always for justice. I just hope that pray that he is a reformed man and learned his lesson.”

Sharma’s acquittal by a city court in February 2006 triggered protests across the country, after which the Delhi high court took up the case. The high court reversed the lower court’s order, saying it ignored or misread material evidence. Sharma was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in December 2006. The Supreme Court upheld the order in 2010.

Prison officials said Sharma’s work inside the prison helped his case for release. He runs an NGO, Siddhartha Vashishta Charitable Trust, that started working in Tihar around eight years ago, and has funded the education of the children of prison inmates. His non-profit has also worked towards the rehabilitation of families of underprivileged prisoners.

Sunil Gupta, who was the prison’s legal officer for 35 years and who knew Sharma inside prison, said Sharma’s good conduct good work helped pave the way for his early release.

“I interacted with him many times during my years in prison. He helped the jail factory in branding its products and made it famous. It was his idea to open outlets or sell the products on the web. His NGO also focused on the children of prisoners and helped hundreds of families,” Gupta said.

Gupta also added that had Sharma not been a “high-profile prisoner” he may have been released just after completing 14 years in prison. ”His remarkable work in prison was lauded by everyone. Also one must remember that a prison is a reformation centre. It is not a place to lock anyone forever.”