Delhi HC asks trial court to hear journalist Soumya Vishwanathan murder case twice a week

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday ordered the expeditious trial of the 2008 murder case of TV journalist Soumya Vishwanathan. Soumya was shot dead on September 30, 2008 while she was returning home in her car from office. Justice Mukta Gupta directed the trial court to hear the case at least twice every week.

“The trial court is directed to expedite the trial for speedy disposal of the case,” the high court said.

The court passed the order on a plea by one of the accused, Baljeet Malik, seeking to expedite and conclude the trial in a fixed time frame on day-to-day basis. Malik along with two others — Ravi Kapoor and Amit Shukla — were earlier convicted in the 2009 IT executive Jigisha Ghosh murder case also.

The deputy commissioner of police (south) was also directed to assign the task of monitoring to additional DCP to ensure the presence of prosecution witnesses on every date of hearing.

Advocate Amit Kumar, appearing for Malik, submitted that the accused was in custody since 2009 and the prosecution has cited 88 witnesses of which approximately 45 to 46 have been examined till now.

The high court was informed by the trial court that the delay in the case was primarily due to non-presence of prosecution witnesses and time taken for the appointment of a special public prosecutor. The high court, however, rejected Malik’s plea seeking direction to authorities to compensate him with ₹1 crore for delay in trial of the case.