Click to play videoNew Delhi: Former Union minister and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) President Shibu Soren was on Tuesday sentenced to life imprisonment by a Delhi sessions court for the murder of his private secretary in 1994.
Additional Sessions Judge B R Kedia also slapped a fine of Rs 5 lakh on the JMM leader while four of his accomplices in the crime were also sentenced to life imprisonment and fined Rs 10,000 each.
The four other accused who were sentenced by the court Nand Kishore Mehta, Pashupati Nath Mehta, Ajay Mehta and Shailendra Bhattacharya.
“Convict Shibu Soren is awarded life imprisonment for hatching conspiracy to kidnap the victim and later killing him with the help of other convicts,” Additional Sessions Judge BR Kedia said in his order as his supporters shouted slogans outside the court.
The court had convicted Soren and the four others on November 28 for the gruesome murder of his secretary Shashinath Jha in 1994. The court pronounced the five guilty of abducting and later murdering Jha.
The court also announced a compensation package of Rs 5 lakh for the family members of Shashinath Jha. Each of Jha’s two daughters will receive a compensation of Rs 2 lakh while his wife will get Rs 1 lakh.
Soren resigned from the Manmohan Singh Cabinet immediately after the November 28 verdict after which the CBI took him into custody. However, he continues to be a member of Lok Sabha.
The CBI, which had taken up the investigations two years after the murder, had pleaded for death sentence to the former Union minister, saying that the case fell in the rarest of rare category "as the crime was committed in the most gruesome manner".
The investigating agency had cited three similar cases before the court in asking for the death sentence for Soren and his four co-accused.
The Sessions Judge, however, overruled the CBI plea and, instead, sentenced Soren and his accomplices to life imprisonment.
Interestingly, the CBI counsel had mentioned the Rajiv Gandhi assassination, the terror attack on Parliament and the murder of law student Priyadarshani Mattoo - in all of which death penalty was awarded to the convicts.
JMM chief's advocate R K Anand said Soren did not deserve death penalty as the case did not fall in that category and argued for lesser punishment maintaining that the 65-year-old leader played a key role in the creation of tribal state of Jharkhand.
The sentencing had earlier been deferred twice - first till December 1 and later till December 5 - owing to Soren's ill-health.
The CBI had filed a chargesheet against the accused on November 10, 1998, alleging that Jha was abducted May 22, 1994, from Dhaula Kuan in South Delhi and later murdered in Ranchi.
The CBI contended that the motive behind Jha's murder was his knowledge about the payment of a bribe that four erstwhile JMM MPs had received.
The four, including Soren, had voted against a no-confidence motion against the PV Narasimha Rao Government in July 1993. They faced trial for bribery, but were acquitted in that case. The court had held Soren guilty under Sections 120-B (criminal conspiracy) and 364 (abduction) read with Section 302 (murder) of the Indian Penal Code.
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