No reprieve for Manu Sharma, two other high-profile convicts
NEW DELHI: Three men arrested in three high-profile murder cases in the Capital, who are serving life terms in jail, will not walk free, a Delhi government board reviewing their sentences has decided.
On Thursday, a Delhi government official said that the Delhi Sentence Review Board (DSRB) rejected pleas for the early release of convicts in the Jessica Lal, Priyadarshini Mattoo and Tandoor murder cases.
Manu Sharma, convicted for the murder of Jessica Lal, Santosh Kumar Singh, the killer of law student Priyadarshini Mattoo and Sushil Sharma, who killed his wife Naina Sahni and tried to dispose of her body by burning it in a tandoor, will have to serve their sentences, said DSRB, which took a call on the early release of a number of convicts.
The panel, headed by Delhi Home Minister Satyendar Jain, reviewed the applications of the three convicted criminals and rejected them.
"The board has rejected early release applications of all the three convicts," the government official confirmed.
He also said that the board decided the fate of close to a 100 prisoners and recommended 22 convicts for release on completion of their sentences and rejected 86 cases.
Manu Sharma, 41, was sentenced to life in jail for shooting model Jessica Lal to death at a party after she refused to serve him a drink on April 30, 1999.
The son of a Congress politician, his case came up for a review before the board ahead of time. Jessica Lal's sister Sabrina has said she has forgiven Manu Sharma and would not object to his early release.
The review board also rejected the application of tandoor murder case convict Sushil Sharma, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006 for Naina Sahni's murder.
Sushil, a former Youth Congress leader, had initially been awarded the death penalty for what came to be dubbed the "tandoor murder" — a crime that had shocked the country.
However, his death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment by the Supreme Court in October 2013.
The death sentence of Santosh Kumar Singh, convicted for the rape and murder of 25-year-old Priyadarshini Mattoo in 1996, was also commuted to life sentence by the apex court eight years ago.
