Verdict in TV journalist Soumya Vishwanthan murder case on October 18

New Delhi: More than 15 years after television journalist Soumya Vishwanathan was killed, a court here will pronounce its verdict in the case on Wednesday.

Additional Sessions Judge Ravindra Kumar Pandey reserved the judgment in the case on October 13 after the completion of arguments by the defence and prosecution.

Vishwanathan was shot dead on September 30, 2008 while she was returning home from work in her car around 3:30 am. Police had claimed that the motive behind her killing was robbery.

Five men -- Ravi Kapoor, Amit Shukla, Baljeet Malik, Ajay Kumar and Ajay Sethi -- were arrested for killing her and are in custody since March 2009.

Police had invoked the stringent Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) against the accused.

The recovery of the weapon used in IT executive Jigisha Ghosh's killing had led to the cracking of Vishwanathan's murder case, police said.

After Malik moved a plea in the Delhi High Court in 2019 for a speedy trial, it sought a report from the trial court as to why the trial had not concluded nine-and-a-half years after the chargesheet was filed.

The trial court had informed the high court that the delay was primarily due to the non-presence of prosecution witnesses and the time taken for the appointment of a special public prosecutor.

The trial court had given death penalty to Kapoor and Shukla and sentenced Malik to a life term in the Jigisha Ghosh murder case in August 2016.

In January 2018, however, the high court had commuted the death sentence of Kapoor and Shukla to life imprisonment and upheld the life term of Malik.