The Hindu : National : Tandoor case: death sentence stayed

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Tuesday, May 08, 2007
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Tandoor case: death sentence stayed

Sushil Sharma

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday stayed the death sentence on the former youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma, who had been convicted in the Naina Sahni murder case, and admitted his appeal seeking to quash the conviction.

A Division Bench of Justices S.B. Sinha and Markandeya Katju referred to a three-judge bench further hearing of the appeal in which Sharma had also claimed that his offence of killing the woman and disposing of her body in a tandoor did not fall under the "rarest of rare" cases to warrant a death sentence.

The Delhi High Court on February 19 confirmed the sentence imposed on Sharma by a sessions court for killing his wife Naina Sahni and attempting to dispose of her body by burning it in the tandoor kitchen of his restaurant in 1995.

The accused had suspected his wife of infidelity. In his appeal filed against the death sentence through counsel Sumitra Kapil, Sharma had challenged the death sentence on the ground that the entire conviction was based on circumstantial evidence and there were no eyewitnesses.

He submitted that there were no eyewitnesses either to the alleged murder or to substantiate the allegation that he tried to dispose of the body in a tandoor.

Sharma alleged that his conviction was not based on evidence but due to "media trial" and the death sentence imposed on him was erroneous in law.

PTI

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