Tandoor murder case convict walks free after two decades
NEW DELHI:THE Delhi High Court on Friday ordered the immediate release of former youth Congress leader Sushil Sharma, who had been lodged in prison for the last 23 years for his wife Naina Sahni’s murder, what came to be infamously known as the tandoor murder case.
The court directed Sharma’s ‘forthwith’ release stating that the order of the Sentence Review Board (SRB) rejecting his premature release was ‘arbitrary and without application of mind’.
“We are of the considered view that the continued incarceration of the petitioner (Sharma) does not admit for lawful sanction. We are therefore directing that he be set at liberty forthwith,” a bench of Justice Siddharth Mridul and Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal said.
It also said that the incarceration of a convicted person, such as Sharma, does not result in the suspension of all his fundamental rights and he is not deluded of the rights enshrined under the Indian Constitution.
The court’s order came while hearing a habeas corpus plea filed by Sharma through his counsel Amit Sahni seeking his release on the contention that he had already undergone the maximum prescribed sentence as mandated under the SRB guidelines.
Convicted of the murder of his wife, Naina Sahni, Sharma had been also accused of chopping his wife’s body and burning it in a tandoor (clay oven).
In 2003, a city court awarded him the death sentence which was later upheld by the Delhi High Court in 2007.
In 2013, the SC commuted his death sentence stating that there was no evidence of Sharma chopping up his wife’s body.
On Friday, the high court bench set aside the order of the SRB rejecting Sharma’s representation as well as the ‘nonspeaking’ affirmation given by the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) on the said order.
The bench, which dictated the order in an open court, stated that even the Supreme Court had commuted Sharma’s death sentence as it did not find any evidence or any such weapon which could have been used for the chopping of his wife’s body.
“…..that the Supreme Court found it will be difficult to state that Sushil Sharma was remorseless. It further observed that the medical evidence in the case did not establish that the dead body was cut into pieces,” the bench said, adding that no opinion was given in the second postmortem report whether the body was cut as dislocation could have happened due to the burning of the body.
On July 26, 2018, the SRB had deferred Sharma’s case after the social welfare department and the prison authorities had given good reviews about him.
However, on October 4, the SRB rejected Sharma’s representation for premature release on the grounds of ‘brutality’ and ‘perversity’.
On Friday, while pronouncing the order, Justice Mridul said that deferring Sharma’s case was “cryptic”, “unreasoned” and “non-speaking”.
“A perusal of the above recommendation of the SRB clearly reflects that the same is cryptic, unreasoned and non-speaking. Although there can be no quarrel with the imposition of the SRB guidelines, the same has to be exercised in just and reasonable manner. There is no manner of doubt in our mind that the brief recommendations of rejecting Sushil Sharma premature release suffer from the vice of arbitrariness, illegality and whimsicality,” the court said.
The court also said that the recommendations of the social welfare department and the prison authorities have not been given due weightage.