Murder of Jessica Lal

On 29 April 1999, Lal was one of several models working at an unlicensed bar at a party in a restaurant overlooking the Qutub Minar in Mehrauli. The bar ran out of liquor at midnight which it only served till 12.30 am. After midnight, Manu Sharma walked in with three friends and demanded to be served liquor, offering ₹ 1000 for it. Lal refused to do so and Sharma then fired a .22 calibre pistol at the ceiling as an intimidatory act. Lal refused again, after which Sharma fired again and the second bullet hit Lal in the head, killing her.[2][3][4]

Due to confusion, a fight followed the shooting, during which Sharma and his friends — Amardeep Singh Gill, Vikas Yadav, and Alok Khanna — left the scene.[2]

Soon after the shooting, contact could not be made with Sharma's family and the family was absconding.[5] After eluding police for a few days Khanna and Gill were arrested on 4 May and Sharma on 6 May with the assistance of accomplices. The murder weapon was not recovered and was thought to have been passed on to a friend who had been visiting from the US and who may subsequently have returned there.[3][4]

The case by now involved several prominent people. Manu Sharma himself was the son of Venod Sharma, an Indian National Congress member, who subsequently resigned from INC. Yadav was the son of state politician, D. P. Yadav. Bina Ramani was a socialite and fashion designer who had redeveloped the premises of the shooting. Her daughter Malini Ramani knew Lal as a fellow-model. Singh managed the distribution of Maaza in Chandigarh.[6]

Amit Jhigan, an accomplice of Sharma, was arrested on 8 May and charged with conspiring to destroy evidence, as it was believed that he had retrieved the pistol from its original hiding place near the bar. While he was remanded in custody, Yadav was still at large and it had also proved impossible to locate his father, who had promised to deliver his son to the police.[4]

Ramani, her husband, and her daughter Malini were arrested on the same day as Jhigan. They were charged with operating an illegal bar and, although released on bail, had to surrender their passports. There were several lines of inquiry regarding the family, including whether or not Ramani — a UK national — had the necessary permits to operate a business in India. Another concern was to establish whether or not she had concealed evidence by ordering the cleaning up of blood at the premises, although by 19 May it had been announced that charges relating to this alleged destruction of evidence could not be brought.[4][6][7]

Yadav was able to obtain Anticipatory bail and presented himself to Delhi police on 19 May without arrest. He claimed to have been in Mumbai and elsewhere during the previous few weeks, and refused to comment regarding whether he had been in contact with his father. He admitted that Sharma had stayed with him on the night of the murder but denied being present himself at the Tamarind Club or having any knowledge of the events that had occurred there until the next day, when he told Sharma to surrender to the police.[7]

Subsequently, he had short spells in custody and longer periods when he was freed on bail, with decisions and overturnings of them being made in various court hearings.[3][8][9]

Charge sheets were filed with the court on 3 August 1999. Sharma was charged with murder, destruction of evidence and other offences, while Khanna, Gill and Yadav faced lesser charges, including destruction of evidence, conspiracy and harbouring a suspect. Others similarly charged were Shyam Sunder Sharma, Amit Jhingan, Yograj Singh, Harvinder Chopra, Vikas Gill, Raja Chopra, Ravinder Krishan Sudan and Dhanraj. The last three named had not yet been apprehended.[3][10]

Seven years after the case was opened, on 21 February 2006, nine of the twelve accused were acquitted, including Sharma. Jhingan had already been discharged and both Ravinder Kishan Sudan and Dhanraj, were still at large. The prosecution had been affected by 32 of their witnesses becoming "hostile". These included Shayan Munshi, Andleeb Sehgal, Karan Rajput, Shiv Lal Yadav and two ballistics experts, Roop Singh and Prem Sagar. After which, in February 2011, it was announced that all 32 would be facing charges of perjury.[11][12]

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.[12]

The Hindu newspaper also reported that the judge was aware that the prosecution was not assisted by the hostility of their witnesses, three of whom had seen the shooting, and by the fact that forensic examination contradicted police claims that two cartridges found at the scene were fired from the same weapon. Finally, the judge believed that the police had failed to provide a sufficient explanation of the chain of events which led up to the killing.[12]

The reaction to the verdict was one of outcry. The New York Times described the situation a fortnight later

Most noticeably among India's urban middle class, the acquittal has released a pent-up frustration with an often blundering and corrupt law enforcement bureaucracy and a deep disgust with the rich and famous who, by all appearances, manipulated it to their advantage.[13]

There were numerous protest campaigns, including ones involving SMS and email, seeking to obtain redress for the perceived miscarriage of justice. Rallies and marches took place, as well as candlelit vigils.[13] The protests and candle light vigils were led by Prabhloch Singh, the founder of an organization called the "Middle Finger Protests", also known as "Human Rights Protection Group" from Manu Sharma's hometown Chandigarh.[14][15] V. N. Khare, a former Chief Justice of India, implicitly criticized the trial judge, saying that it should have been an "open and shut" case and that

Sometimes when the police, the prosecution and the lawyers all have connections with the criminals, the judge should be slightly proactive. He should try to get to the truth, and not depend totally on the evidence provided in court. In a case like this, he is not going to get proper evidence. Mostly the judiciary is depended on the evidence provided by the investigative agencies, but now when the situation is so bad, the judges have to wake up, be proactive and find the truth.[10]

The Delhi police commissioner announced an investigation to determine where things had gone wrong, and said that among other things it would examine whether there had been a conspiracy, including possibly by tampering with the evidence.[10]

The police petitioned the High Court for a review of the case and on 22 March 2006 the court issued warrants against the nine defendants who had stood trial. Eight of them were subsequently bailed in April, with restrictions imposed on their ability to leave the country. The ninth defendant, Gill, had not been traced since the original issue of warrants in March.[16]

On 9 September 2006, a sting operation by the news magazine Tehelka was shown on the TV channel STAR News. This appeared to show that witnesses had been bribed and coerced into retracting their initial testimony. Venod Sharma was named in the exposé as one who had paid money to some of the witnesses.[17] Facing pressure from the central Congress leaders, Venod Sharma resigned from the Haryana cabinet.[18]

In May 2013, Delhi High Court ordered prosecution of Bollywood actor Shayan Munshi and a ballistic expert, P. S. Manocha, for turning hostile. The court cleared a further 17 people whose allegedly hostile position was under review. Ten other people had been discharged from claims of perjury in earlier hearings and three had died since the original trial.[30]

No One Killed Jessica, a 2011 Hindi film starring Rani Mukherjee and Vidya Balan, was inspired by the incident.[31] Six Suspects, a 2016 novel by Vikas Swarup centred on a similar murder.

• Law of India
• Ram Jethmalani, Indian lawyer and Manu Sharma's defence counsel

• News summary at Rediff.com
• News summary at the BBC