Kunjum murder case: Romesh, other accused get life behind bars

NEW DELHI: Two days after convictinghim for plotting to kill his fashion designer girlfriend, Kunjum Budhraj, atrial court on Monday awarded a life term to former Congressman and allegedDawood aide, Romesh Sharma, and five of his associates.The courtalso imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 on Sharma, who along with nephew, SurinderMishra, a close associate, Tejinder Virdi alias Dolly, and three others wereheld guilty of hatching a criminal conspiracy to murder Kunjum. The other threeconvicts ��� Hem Chand, Sant Ram and Ramesh ��� had been roped in toexecute the plan. Jaspreet Virdi alias Sonu, the sister of Dolly, was acquittedfor want of evidence.In the sentence, additional sessions judge S PGarg imposed a fine of Rs 5,000 each on Mishra and Dolly and Rs 1,000 each onthe three hired assasins, although it didn't impose any additional penalty forthe offence of criminal conspiracy as it held that "they have already beensentenced for major offences under section 302 (murder) and 34 (common intent)"of the IPC.Indicting Sharma for his machinations against a woman whowas clearly devoted to him, ASJ Garg said: "The offence committed by theconvicts is highly shocking and atrocious. Romesh Sharma exploited the innocenceof an unsuspecting victim who used to have deovtion, love and affection for himand used to pray for his early release." It added:"The court can well understandthe trauma of parents and other relations of the deceased whose life was cutshort by the convicts. On that account, convicts deserved noleniency."Earlier, prosecutor S K Saxena had asked the court toimpose death penalty on Sharma for being the main conspirator and for financingthe murder of Kunjum by hiring the three killers. The court, however, rejectedthe plea and held that it was not a case to impose maximum punishment of death."I am of the considered view that it is not one of the rarest of rare caseswhere extreme penalty of death is to be awarded to any of the convicts," thecourt said. Refusing to buy the prosecution's call for a deathpenalty, ASJ Garg pointed out that the case of the prosecution was based oncircumstantial evidence, and as per a Supreme court judgment, death penaltycould not be imposed in such cases. Mitigating circumstances like the age of theconvicts, the period of their detention in jail and the fact that none of theaccused has been held guilty in any earlier offences ��� the ASJ held��� went in favour of the convicts. "None of the convicts is involved in anyother organised criminal activity...in my view the ends of justice would be metif they are all sentenced to undergo imprisonment for life with a reasonablefine."Kunjum was murdered on March 20, 1999. Though the incidentoccured while Sharma was in prison on other charges, the court agreed with theprosecution, that Sharma along with his nephew and Dolly hatched a criminalconspiracy to murder Kunjum. shriharsha.k@timesgroup.com