The argument before Additional Sessions Judge Rajender Kumar Shastri started around 11 am in a packed courtroom. Prosecution counsel S K Saxena and Manisha Sharma sought capital punishment for Sharma and Pradeep, claiming their class of offence fell under the “rarest of rare” category.

“It was a pre-planned and cold-blooded murder, executed in a diabolical manner. A helpless woman was killed for no fault of hers,” the prosecution argued.

It also cited a few Supreme Court judgments while contending that the offence by Sharma and Pradeep, the hired killer, warranted death penalty while the other two convicts, Satya Prakash and Sri Bhagwan, should be given life terms.

Opposing the prosecution’s arguments, Sharma’s counsel S P Minocha said the case was in no way an instance of the “rarest of rare” crimes.

“The only fact that she (Shivani) was a press reporter cannot make the crime uncommon and hence invite the capital punishment,” he said.

Minocha said Sharma’s official position at the time of the incident had nothing to do with the offence and hence that should not be a criterion while determining the punishment. He said his excellent career record should, instead, go in his favour.

He also expressed his displeasure over the alleged leak of a part of the judgment to the media claiming that it was the convicts who had the right to get the copy of the verdict first as they were to argue on the point of sentence.

Arguing for Pradeep, advocate D B Goswami said though any murder is a heinous crime, all convicts cannot be awarded the maximum punishment unless there were very strong reasons for it. Goswami said the apex court had specifically set guidelines for awarding death penalty, and in the present case neither the act had shaken the conscience of the society nor the murder was carried out in an extremely brutal manner, thereby meeting the criteria.

Shivani was murdered at her east Delhi apartment on January 23, 1999. Nine years later, on March 18, a Delhi court convicted Sharma, an IPS officer of the 1976-batch, and three others for the murder.

In the courtroom on Thursday, Sharma listened to every bit of the two-hour-long argument attentively. He was reluctant to go to the lock-up without taking the copy of the judgment and said all he knew about the grounds of conviction was through media reports whereas he should have been given its copy on the day of the order.

Court orders to register case against witness who had turned hostile

With the court ordering his prosecution, Suresh Kukreja, a key witness who had once turned hostile, also had a tough day on Thursday. “It appears Kukreja deliberately told a lie, which is a punishable offence,” the judge said in his verdict. Kukreja, a Delhi-based businessman and Sharma’s friend, was brought to the court by the prosecution in September 2003, after he had stated before a magistrate that he had given his mobile phone to Sharma during the latter’s stay in Pune in January, 1999. When told to depose before the ASJ, Kukreja had said his version was prompted by police pressure. The ASJ has now directed to register a complaint against him under the penal provisions entailing a maximum imprisonment for three years.

Defence draws flak for demeaning comments on Shivani’s character