Shivani Bhatnagar

Shivani Bhatnagar may finally get justice. Delhi High Court will give its verdict today on the murder of the Indian Express journalist, Shivani Bhatnagar, who was killed over a decade ago, on 23 January, 1999 shaking the entire nation along with the top levels of Indian politics.The Delhi High Court is to give its verdict today on appeals by former senior police officer R K Sharma and three others challenging their conviction and life sentence for having killed the journalist. Sharma, a former IPS offcier, is serving life term in Tihar Jail along with his accomplices Bhagwan, Pradeep Sharma and Satya Prakash for having killed Shivani, in her Navkunj Apartments flat at I P Extension in East Delhi.[caption id="attachment_105468" align="alignleft" width="380" caption="Screengrab from ibnlive"][/caption]R K Sharma, a senior Haryana cadre IPS officer was found to be prime accused in the case. He was on the run ever since the Delhi police issued an arrested warrant against him in connection with the murder case. Delhi police released Sharma's picture and declared a reward of Rs 50,000 for his arrest. On 23 August, Sharma was suspended from his service.Later on 27 September, he surrendered himself in a court in Ambala which sent him to judicial custody till 5 October. Sharma, however, continued to be released on parole for attending the last rites of his mother, and later for attending his daughter's wedding.IPS officer R K Sharma along with three other accused in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case were convicted by a Delhi Court on 18 March, 2008. Two other accused—Ved Prakash Sharma and Ved Prakash alias Kalu—were acquitted for want of evidence.Sharma and his wife, Madhu, had alleged that Bhatnagar’s murder was orchestrated by the late Pramod Mahajan, a prominent leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Mahajan was killed by his own brother in another unrelated incident.R K Sharma confessed to the police that he was acquainted with Shivani since the days that he had been posted as OSD to the then Prime Minister I K Gujral and she had been covering the PMO as a correspondent with the Indian Express. The investigation further revealed when the murder took place, Ravi Kant was posted as Chief Vigilance Officer of Air-India in Mumbai and Shivani was on maternity leave. While Shivani had gone to London for three months earlier, Ravi Kant had made 90 ISD calls to her from Mumbai. Shivani, incidentally, made 176 calls from London to Mumbai during this period.Ravikant Sharma had accused Union minister Pramod Mahajan for having had a love 'affair' with the slain Indian Express reporter. Sharma has termed Mahajan's affair with Shivani as "common knowledge: "Everyone knew, except the Delhi Police."While all the accused have been charged under Section 302 (murder), 120 B (conspiracy), 201 (causing disappearance of evidence), 403 and 404 (dishonest misappropriation of property), Ved Prakash Sharma and Ved alias Kallu have been separately charged under section 411 (dishonestly receiving stolen property).A division bench of justices B D Ahmed and Manmohan Singh, which had reserved the verdict on 21 December last year, is to pronounce its judgement today at 10.30 am. The court had reserved the final order on appeals by Sharma and three other convicts after hearing their arguments as well as those of the prosecution.