Click to play videoNew Delhi: On Monday the Delhi High Court delivered its judgement pronouncing Manu Sharma guilty of killing Jessica Lall.
The court ruled "Manu Sharma has been found guilty of murdering Jessica under Section 302 of IPC and Section 27 of Arms Act for illegal possession of weapon."
But who tried to kill the Jessica Lall murder case?
According to a Special Investigation Report of the police senior officials of the Delhi Police tried to shield the guilty and derail the case.
When the judgement of the High Court came in the Jessica Lall case, Amod Kanth, who had led investigations into the case, lost no time in claiming credit for Manu Sharma's conviction.
Kanth, who was then a joint commissioner in the Delhi Police and is currently the Director General of Police, Arunachal Pradesh, praised his juniors who had investigated the case in 1999.
But if a report by a Delhi Police Special Investigation Team is to be believed, Kanth couldn't have been further from truth.
The report states it is obvious that senior police officers had colluded with Manu's father, Venod Sharma, to save him.
Venod Sharma is a leading Haryana politician belonging to the Congress party and had served as a minister at the centre in the Narasimha Rao Cabinet
The culprit No.1 in the case was investigating officer Raman Lamba. Lamba was sent to Chandigarh to try and arrest Manu and also to recover his Tata Safari after the murder of Jessica but he made no such effort.
Most witnesses had referred to the killer as a short young man wearing a white T-shirt, but Lamba made no efforts to retrieve Manu's clothes.
The SIT report says Lamba arranged a meeting between Manu's father Venod sharma and then additional deputy commissioner of police Vivek Gogia.
It adds that as a result of the meeting, Manu's surrender was staged on May 6, 1999, a week after the murder.
Vivek Gogia is the culprit No. 2. Gogia had written a letter to the Central Forensic Science Laboratory, asking whether two guns were used for murdering Jessica.
The letter was used to support Shayan Munshi's two-gun theory.
The report is silent about the role of then joint commissioner Amod kanth and deputy commissioner of police Sudhir Yadav.
However, the report raises pertinent questions about how such crucial oversights happened in such a high profile murder case without the knowledge of the seniors.
It also says no efforts were made by investigating officer Raman Lamba to note down the licence number of the Tata Safari though he spotted it outside Tamarind Court after the murder.
No photographs of the ceiling of the bar were taken though Manu had fired one shot on the roof first.
The report states the photograph could have gone a long way in establishing the exact location of the shooter.
Though the verdict in the case may be out but the culprits are still out according to SIT.
The high court will begin hearing the report after the quantum of sentence for Manu Sharma is pronounced.
And the Lall family is hopeful that the police officers who made them wait for justice for more than seven years will be brought to book.
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