The Sessions Court here, which is conducting the Pramod Mahajan murder trial, has discounted the prosecution’s theory that “money” was the motive behind killing of the BJP leader, although it upheld his last statement, wondering what wrong he had done for his younger brother Pravin to shoot him, as stated in his “dying declaration” in this case.

The Additional Sessions Judge, S P Davre, has been dictating the judgement in the open court since one week and is likely to pronounce his verdict on the lone accused, Pravin Mahajan, in a couple of days, most probably on Monday.

The trial, which earlier appeared as an open-and-shut case, has turned out to be extremely complicated.

The prosecution claims that   Pravin demanded an amount of Rs one crore from Mr Mahajan for a business deal and after having been denied money, threatened the elder brother with dire consequences and later shot him on April 22, 2006. Despite several shortcomings pointed out by the defence team led by criminal lawyer Harshad Ponda in the prosecution’s case, the prosecution got a major boost when the judge upheld Mahajan’s last statement, as reported by his brother-in-law Gopinath Munde, as the dying declaration.

The judge said, Mr Munde, who had been Maharashtra's deputy chief minister incharge of home department, was a senior public figure and his testimony could  be relied upon.

However, the judge discounted the prosecution’s theory that Pravin committed the act for money. The prosecution had sighted an SMS sent by Pravin to Mahajan days before he was shot. The defence, on the other hand, claimed in the court that an SMS could be altered and even demonstrated an exercise by a software specialist.

The judge, nevertheless, discounted the defence team’s claim too of the SMS having been tampered with. It said the defence had not been able to prove that Mahajan’s mobile phone was tampered with.

He also said Pravin’s wife Sarangi’s claim that that particular SMS was actually sent by her on instructions of Pravin to seek Mahajan’s appointment was an “afterthought.”

So if “money” was not the motive, then why did Pravin send the threatening SMS and why did he shoot Mahajan as stated in his dying declaration are some the questions which will be answered in the verdict.