A Dehra Dun court on Wednesday sentenced to life imprisonment former Uttar Pradesh minister Amarmani Tripathi, his wife Madhumani and relative Rohit Chaturvedi and contract-killer Santosh Rai in the high profile poetess Madhumita Shukla murder case.

Holding all the four guilty in the case, Dehra Dun District and Sessions judge V B Rai also gave one year additional imprisonment to Tripathi under Sections of 342 and 506 of IPC.

Convicting all the four under Sections 302 and 120-B, the court also imposed a fine of Rs 50,000 each on them. However, Prakash Pandey, a sharpshooter, who was accompanying Santosh Rai was acquitted for lack of evidence.

“It is beyond any doubt that it was a heinous crime. But it is not the rarest of the rare case. So all the four deserve life imprisonment,” Rai said in his 401-page judgment as he took only five minutes to pronounce the verdict.

Immediately after the verdict was pronounced, CBI counsel Raj Mohan Chand hailed the judgment saying they were satisfied with the verdict.

 He said CBI would examine the court verdict and decide whether to appeal against the acquittal of Pandey.
“Though we have demanded the highest penalty for all the accused, nevertheless we are satisfied with the judgment,” Chand said.

Nidhi Shukla, sister of the slain poetess, however said she was expecting death sentence for Tripathi. Nearly 79 witnesses appeared in the case which was transferred to the court of V B Rai under the order of Supreme Court early this year. The CBI has investigated the case which began in Dehra Dun in March this year following allegations that Tripathi and his wife Madhumani may impede a free and fair trial in the home state.

The poetess was found murdered at her Lucknow flat on May 9, 2003. Madhumita, who was seven months’ pregnant, was murdered at the behest of Madhumani, who was opposed to her affair with her husband. Nidhi and the slain woman’s domestic help Desraj were the key witnesses in the case.