Jessica Lall was a model in New Delhi who was working as a celebrity barmaid at a socialite party when she was shot dead on April 29, 1999. Dozens of witnesses pointed to Siddharth Vashisht, a.k.a. Manu Sharma, the son of Venod Sharma, a powerful Congress politician in Haryana, as the murderer. Due to inadequacies in the investigation and an overall shoddy prosecution, Manu Sharma and a number of others were all acquitted by Judge S. L. Bhayana on February 21, 2006. The surname "Lall" is sometimes spelled "Lal" in the media. An Aerial view of New Delhi The Humayuns Tomb, situated in New Delhi, has an architectural design similar to the Taj Mahal. ... April 29 is the 119th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (120th in leap years). ... 1999 (MCMXCIX) was a common year starting on Friday, and was designated the International Year of Older Persons by the United Nations. ... Manu Sharma after his release Manu Sharma alias Siddharth Vashisht, (b. ... Venod Sharma is a leader of Indian National Congress party from Haryana. ... Haryana (Hindi: , IPA: / /) is a state in north India. ... February 21 is the 52nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Manu Sharma was convicted in a reopened case as per judgement delivered on 18th December 2006.[1].Manu Sharma was represented by famous lawyer Ram Jethmalani and court proceedings in reopened case was conducted in fast track manner by daily hearings for over 25 days. Ram Jethmalani (born September 14, 1923) is an Indian politician. ...

Anatomy of a very public murder

On April 29, 1999, leading socialite Bina Ramani organized a party at her restaurant, Tamarind Court Cafe, in the Qutub area of South Delhi - it was to be a farewell party for her husband Georges Mailhot who was going abroad for six months. Several youngsters and models were serving drinks at the 'Once upon a time' bar, including Jessica Lall and her friends Malini Ramani and Shyan Munshi. Delhi   (Hindi: , Urdu: ‎, Punjabi: ) is a metropolis in northern India. ...

At about 0200 hours when the party was almost over, Manu Sharma with his friends Amardeep Singh, Alok Khanna, Amit Jhingan and Vikas Yadav, allegedly entered the restaurant and demanded liquor from Jessica.

Since the bar was being closed, Jessica told Sharma that no more drinks would be served. After some altercation, Sharma lost his temper and fired his gun - once in the air and the second time at Jessica. The bullet struck her temple and she died on the spot.

Sharma fled from the restaurant with his friends in a car which was later found abandoned in a Delhi suburb. During an intense hunt for Sharma over a week, three of his friends were arrested, but Sharma himself went underground. His father, Venod Sharma was asked to step down as Congress Party Chief in the state.

Eventually Manu Sharma surrendered on May 6 in Chandigarh. Subsequently the fourth person, Vikas Yadav, son of DP Yadav, another heavyweight minister from Uttar Pradesh with mafia connections, also surrendered. Chandigarh   (Punjabi: , Hindi: , pronunciation: ) also called The City Beautiful, is a city in India that serves as the capital of two states: Punjab and Haryana. ... Dharam Pal Yadav is a mafia don turned politician in India. ...

Manu Sharma himself apparently made a statement to police on video tape, in which he admits to having shot Jessica. The existence of this videotape is controversial, and it may not, in any event, constitute legal testimony. However, the fact that he initially admitted to having shot her is not in doubt. Subsequently however, the confession was retracted, and a not guilty plea was entered in the trial.

Venod Sharma resigned from the Haryana Ministry on October 6th 2006, following a sting operation which exposed how Sharma bribed some of the witnesses.

The trial

Manu Sharma is the son of one of the leading politicians in the state of Haryana, Venod Sharma, belonging to the Congress Party. Earlier a minister in the National Cabinet, Venod Sharma has to resign as a minister from the Haryana government as well as public pressure grew. One of Manu's aunts is a daughter of erstwhile President of India, Shankar Dayal Sharma. --207. ... Dr. Shankar Dayal Sharma (August 19, 1918 - December 26, 1999) was an Indian scholar and politician, most notable for serving as President of India from 1992 until 1997. ...

The Jessica Lall murder case went up for trial in August 1999, with Manu charged with murder and his friends charged of related crimes such as harbouring criminal suspects.

Four of the witnesses who had initially said they had seen the murder happen, eventually turned hostile. Shyan Munshi, a model and friend who was serving drinks beside Jessica Lall, changed his story completely; as for earlier testimony recorded with the police, he said that the writing was in Hindi, a language he was not familiar with, and it should be repudiated. It is widely speculated that he may be under threat and that the judicial system is unable to provide witnesses with adequate security. Karan Rajput and Shivdas Yadav also had not seen anything, while Parikshit Sagar said he had left the place before the incident. In a conversation with the sister of Jessica, Karan Rajput is alleged to have played a tape-recording with some friends of the prosecuted who alleged to have "won over" several witnesses already.

Also, it appears that the cartridges used in the murder were altered. Although the gun was never recovered, these cartridges were for some reason sent for Forensic evaluation, where it turned out that they had been fired from different weapons. This led to a further weakening of the prosecution case.

Shyan Munshi's testimony

Shyan Munshi is the son of a well known ophthalmologist in Kolkata, where he studied at the reputed Don Bosco School. An aspiring model and ostensibly a friend of Jessica Lal's, Shyan Munshi was serving behind the bar with Jessica when the shooting occurred. In his initial statement he said unequivocally that Manu Sharma had fired the gun twice, once into the air, and once at Jessica. This testimony was recorded by the police in their First Information Report (FIR), which Shyan signed. However, during the trial he claimed that he did not know Hindi and that he was not aware of what he had signed. It later turned out that he had passed the secondary school exam with Hindi as a subject, and had also acted in the Hindi movie, Jhankar Beats.   (IPA: [] Bengali: কলকাতা) (formerly  ) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal. ...

At the trial, Shyan said that Manu Sharma had fired only once, and that also into the air. He described Manu's clothes carefully. Subsequently, he said that another bullet, fired by someone else, was the one to hit Jessica. About this man's dress, he was evasive, and saying only that he was wearing a "light-coloured" shirt. This led to the "two-gun theory" - with the forensic report said that the bullets were fired from different weapons. It is widely believed that the forensic reports were also doctored.

Following the acquittal, there was intense pressure on Shyan Munshi, who was already launched on a successful modeling career. He was involved in hosting a cooking show on TV and other activity.

On May 13, 2006, he was detained at Calcutta airport as he was about to board a flight for Bangkok, along with his wife Piya Rai Chaudhuri. Subsequently, he faced extensive police questioning, and may now be facing charges of perjury, based on evidence such as his Hindi examination marks and the fact that he acted in Hindi films. The Bangkok Skytrain at sunset on Thanon Narathiwat Ratcha Nakharin with Empire Tower at the back. ... Perjury is the act of lying or making verifiably false statements on a material matter under oath or affirmation in a court of law or in any of various sworn statements in writing. ...

Malini Ramani's testimony

Another witness, Malini Ramani, daughter of the party host Bina Ramani, described the events as follows.

At 2 AM after the bar had closed, Manu Sharma walked in wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. The following is from her testimony in court:

Asked by the prosecutor what happened next, she said, "He asked for drinks. I told him that the bar was closed. He said that he would pay cash. I said it did not matter. Then he said that he would pay Rs 1000 for a drink. I told him that the bar was closed. Then he made a comment that "I could have a sip of you for Rs 1000," Malini Ramani told the crowded court.

Could you identify that man, the prosecutor asked.

"Yes, I can," she said and pointed to Manu Sharma. "The man who asked for drinks looked like him," she said.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely," she said.

"What did you do then?"

"I was irritated by the comment and left the Tamarind Court and went towards the courtyard where I crossed my mother," she said.

"I had hardly gone out for a minute or two when Shyan ran towards me screaming Jessica had been shot. I passed out and fainted. It was only at 6 in the morning when I came to know from my mother that Jessica was dead. I was told this on phone," Ramani told the court.

The Judgment

After extensive hearings with nearly a hundred witnesses, the court passed its order on February 21, 2006. Throughout his 179-page case verdict, Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) S L Bhayana said that police sought to 'create' and 'introduce false evidence' against Sharma. The judgment repeatedly hints that the prosecution may have attempted, from the very beginning, to fabricate the evidence and present false witnesses, so as to render the case indefensible. In conclusion, he agrees with "the counsel for the accused that on April 30, 1999 the police had decided to frame the accused," read the judgment.

The judgment failed the police for deciding on the accused first and then collecting evidence against him, instead of letting the evidence lead them to the murderer. Since the prosecution had failed to establish the guilt beyond doubt, all nine accused were acquitted.

The aftermath

In the immense uproar that followed, hundreds of thousands of people e-mailed and sms-ed their outrage on petitions forwarded by media channels and newspapers to the President and others seeking remedies for the alleged miscarriage of justice. A poll conducted by the newspaper Hindustan Times showed that on a scale of 1 to 10, the public's faith in law enforcement in India was about 2.7. SMS arrival notification on a Siemens phone Received and displayed SMS message on a Motorola RAZR handset. ... The Hindustan Times is a leading newspaper in India. ...

Public pressure built up with newspapers splashing headlines such as "No one killed Jessica", and TV channels running SMS polls. Models, fashion designers, friends, relatives and others have held candle-light vigils at India Gate in New Delhi to protest the injustice of it all. Built in the memory of more than 90,000 Indian soldiers who lost their lives during the Afghan Wars and World War 1, the India Gate is one of the most famous monuments in Delhi. ...

Surender Sharma, the police inspector responsible for the investigation, was transferred from the plum Hauz Khas position to a bureaucratic post. The police have also launched an inquiry against the possibly deliberate ineptness of their own earlier investigation.

Bowing to public opinion, the Delhi Police appealed against the acquittal at Delhi's High Court. (In India both convictions and acquittals can be appealed in higher courts). However, it is likely to drag on for years, as in a number of other cases. For instance, the murder of Priyadarshini Mattoo had been in the High Court for six years, during which period the alleged murderer, son of a high-ranking police officer, was practising law in Delhi himself. He was, however, awarded capital punishment on October 30,2006. Priyadarshini Mattoo (July 23,1973-January 23,1996) was a 23 year old law student when she was found raped and murdered at her house in New Delhi on January 23, 1996. ... Delhi   (Hindi: , Urdu: ‎, Punjabi: ) is a metropolis in northern India. ...

On April 18, the a division bench comprising Justice Manmohan Sareen and Justice J M Malik released Manu Sharma on Rs 1 Lakh (USD 2000) bail. They also pulled up the Delhi Police and urged them to ensure minimal delays in the re-trial process.

In the years that Manu Sharma has been free on bail, he has set up the thriving Blue Ice night spot and disco in Chandigarh.

Retrial

On March 22, 2006, the Delhi High Court admitted an appeal by the police against the Jessica Lal murder acquittals, issuing bailable warrants against prime accused Manu Sharma and eight others and restraining them from leaving the country.

On September 9 2006, a TV programme on Star News highlighted a Tehelka sting operation which showed how the witnesses were bribed and coerced into retracting their initial testimony. Venod Sharma was named in the expose as paying millions of rupees to some of the witnesses. Facing pressure from the central Congress leaders (in view of forthcoming elections in the neighbouring state of Punjab), Venod Sharma resigned from the Haryana cabinet on October 6, 2006. Please wikify (format) this article or section as suggested in the Guide to layout and the Manual of Style. ...

See Manu Sharma for more details and excerpts from the Tehelka expose. Manu Sharma after his release Manu Sharma alias Siddharth Vashisht, (b. ...

Finally Convicted

On 20th of December 2006, Manu Sharma was awarded life imprisonment by the Delhi High Court.Other Accused Vikas Yadav and AmarDeep Singh Gill were awarded four years of imprisonment. ^[1]

• Someone did kill Jessica Lall, after all. And it was, as all of us had suspected, Manu Sharma, the son of an influential politician, who almost got away by threatening or paying off witnesses, leaving the country in shocked outrage.
• Exactly 300 days after Manu and his friends were allowed to walk free by the trial court of S L Bhayana, the Delhi High Court on Monday convicted Manu for murdering Jessica. He is back in Tihar Jail after a lapse of almost five years. On the 20th of December 2006, Manu Sharma was sentenced to life in prison.
• Justice and truth have finally prevailed. Conviction of the killer in this sensational case - which brought out thousands of people on the streets to protest against Manu's acquittal, with candlelight vigils and silent marches - has restored the faith in the people about the rule of law. Even people with awesome clout have to pay for their crime

See also

• Law in India
• Priyadarshini Mattoo: Similar murder case from 1996 with a well-connected suspect. In 1999, the court acquitted due to poor investigation. Culprit convicted on appeal by CBI to Delhi High Court
• Nitish Katara: another high profile murder case currently in trial.

Indian Law is largely derived from the British Common Law. ... Priyadarshini Mattoo (July 23,1973-January 23,1996) was a 23 year old law student when she was found raped and murdered at her house in New Delhi on January 23, 1996. ... Nitish Katara was an executive in Delhi when he was murdered in the early hours of February 17, 2002. ...

External links

• Who's Who of Jessica Lal Case
• Index of pages on Jessica Lal murder case from Rediff.com
• Jessica Lal coverage from NDTV
• Jessica Lal coverage from CNN-IBN
• Jessica Lal coverage from Indian Express
• who are social killers of Jessica lall? you ,me or page 3
• Is indian media becoming bigger than indian justice delivery system?