R K Sharma to be sentenced on 24th Mar in Shivani case

A Delhi court on Thursday reserved its order on the quantum of sentence against convicted IPS officer R K Sharma in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case till 24th March even as the prosecution sought death penalty for him. Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri said he would pronounce the punishment against Sharma and three other convicts next week, after the prosecution and the defence completed their arguments on sentence. Earlier starting the day's proceedings in a packed court room, the special public prosecutor S K Saxena sought the gallows for the Haryana cadre IPS officer and the hired "killer" Pradeep Sharma for the nine-year-old incident. Sharma, a 1976-batch IPS officer, along with three others -- Pradeep Sharma, Sri Bhagwan and Satya Prakash -- was convicted on 18th March for plotting journalist Shivani's murder in her east Delhi apartment on 23rd January, 1999. A pensive-looking Sharma stood in the dock for about 20 minutes during the proceedings and then sought the court's permission to sit on a chair due to his back ailment. For the next two hours, he shut his eyes and buried himself in the chair to hear the arguments. Opposing the prosecution's plea seeking death penalty for Sharma, his counsel S P Minocha said "Just because, a journalist was allegedly killed by an IPS officer, it does not constitute an offence falling under the rarest of rare category calling for the maximum punishment." Referring to media reports on the verdict related to the defence allegedly casting aspersions on Shivani's character, he said, "It was the prosecution claim that Sharma got the journalist killed because he wanted to walk out of their intimate relationship." Shivani's threat to expose Sharma goes in his favour, the counsel said.

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