Manu Sharma - Murder and Conviction

Murder and Conviction

In the late 1990s, Manu Sharma was known to be a regular party-goer in Delhi. On 29 April 1999, he was present at a party where an unlicensed bar was operating. Jessica Lal refused to serve him, despite being offered 1000 rupees, and Sharma then fired a .22 pistol and killed her. Sharma was arrested and charged with murder, destruction of evidence and other offences. During the trial, 32 witnesses turned "hostile". Seven years after the case was opened, on 21 February 2006, Sharma and eight others of the twelve accused were acquitted. The trial judge commented after the outcome that

The court has acquitted them because the Delhi police failed to sustain the grounds on which they had built up their case. The police failed to recover the weapon which was used to fire at Jessica Lal as well as prove their theory that the two cartridges, emptied shells of which were recovered from the spot, were fired from one weapon.

After his acquittal by the trial court, Sharma was ostracized, with SMS campaigns being sent out to boycott all establishments that the Sharmas had owned. The acquittal led to widespread public outcry. In March 2006, the case was re-admitted in the Delhi High Court where it was tried on a fast-track basis. Among the evidence re-introduced were two spent cartridges recovered from Sharma's car, the ballistic analysis for one of which showed it as matching the bullet recovered from Lal's skull. This evidence had been overlooked by the trial court. On 18 December 2006, The High Court ruled Manu Sharma guilty of murdering Jessica Lal and sentenced him to life imprisonment. After conviction, Manu was imprisoned in the Tihar Jail. Sharma appealed to the Supreme Court of India through his counsel Ram Jethmalani. However, the Court upheld his sentence of life imprisonment on April 19 2010.