There were opportunities to play up each and every incident, item and character related to the Jessica Lal case from the time the crime took place on April 30, 1999, until the day of the judgement, February 21, 2006. The prominent incidents included the initial circumstances of Manu’s identification, his dramatic escape and innocuous surrender, DP Yadav’s intricate hide-and-seek games and the highly “filmy” surrender of Vikas Yadav in my office at the Delhi Police Headquarters with the entire media in tow.
The mockery of the judicial process through a fake anticipatory bail obtained from a Manipur judge by Vikas Yadav came to light later, but by that time the media had got used to any unusual event happening in this case. In the midst of some media glare, involvement of the home ministry, which had already asked for a report from us, alongside the High Court taking suo moto cognisance, another event took place. This was the controversial transfer of my batchmate and friend, Yudhvir Singh Dadwal, the joint commissioner of police, New Delhi range to Arunachal Pradesh, since he was present at the party where the crime had taken place. Each aspect of this case and each person involved at every stage, all proved that facts, like truth, are stranger than fiction.
Between the day of the murder and the filing of the charge sheet on August 3, 1999, there were endless media stories that detailed the arrests as they took place. The first to be arrested were Amardeep Singh Gill and Alok Khanna on May 5. They were picked up following the raids by Delhi Police at Manu Sharma’s house. Manu, the main accused, whose every step was followed by the media, was arrested on May 6. There was an incessant media interest in the case between the morning of April 30 when the crime came to light and May 6 when Manu was arrested in Chandigarh, and beyond, with regular doses of spicy and intriguing stories.
Two days later, on May 8, the glamorous socialite Bina Ramani, her husband Georges Mailhot and daughter Malini were arrested under the Excise Act for running an unlicensed bar, Tamarind Court, at Qutub Colonnade where the murder had taken place. The involvement of former President Shankar Dayal Sharma’s son-in-law, Shyam Sunder Sharma, in the case and numerous gossip-stories about the Ramanis and other celebrities who had attended the party, used up a lot of newsprint and airtime.
After Barkha’s phone call, my mind travelled back over the years, recollecting the different stages of the investigation – arrests, the framing of charges and the subsequent trial. The wheels of the media factory had started rolling from the moment the girl was shot and continued all through the case. In Delhi in those days, the concept of celebrity bartenders was very new. Mother–daughter duo Bina and Malini Ramani were socialites, famous for their ability to create hotspots that worked as celebrity magnets. To her credit, Bina Ramani had incredible business acumen and she was among the early persons to spot the potential of the real estate in Hauz Khas Village. But when her restaurant there ran into some excise issues, she moved to the area around the Qutub Minar to create a new kind of party place for the nouveau riche of Delhi, who always have more money than opportunities of spending it.
Tamarind Court, named after the tamarind trees in the courtyard of the well-known Qutub Colonnade, had been going through its soft launch phase. The excise licences had not yet come in. But small things like laws had never deterred Bina Ramani and she had gone ahead with her launch by bending the rules. Since she was not allowed to sell alcohol without an excise licence, she had come up with the unique idea of hosting “Thursday parties” to popularise the destination. These were supposedly by-invitation private parties. And the attraction of these private parties were the celebrity bartenders, generally models or designers who were friends of Malini.
Within just a few weeks, for the rich and the famous, the Thursday parties at Tamarind Court had become the place to be seen. On April 29, 1999, Bina had another one of her Thursday parties, this time ostensibly as a farewell for her husband Georges Mailhot, who was going abroad for six months. There were several celebrities present that evening. An international event was being held in Delhi that week and some of the names and faces generally found in the business papers had also congregated at Tamarind Court that fateful Thursday night. At the bar were models Jessica Lal and Shayan Munshi, among others.
You can imagine the media interest in such a party even without a sensational murder taking place. As soon as the news of the shooting started coming in, the media spotlight turned on us. For the media, the first report was of a shoot-out at a fashionable and trendy restaurant. When they spotted Malini Ramani and other Page Three faces at the cremation ground in Punjabi Bagh, the headlines started grabbing more attention.
It was but natural that the entire progress in the Jessica Lal murder case was published and telecast in full tabloid-style of juicy reporting – from the incident reports, the arrests, the filing of charge sheet to the framing of charges in the court on November 24, 2000. We were routinely accused of having conducted a shoddy investigation, of having failed to present a water-tight case. The media reports also carried details of how the case crumbled when the key witnesses Shayan Munshi, Shiv Das, and Karan Rajput turned hostile in May 2001 and the vague and unsure manner in which the Ramanis identified Manu Sharma in the court. All these events dealt persistent and unrelenting blows to the case. When on April 12, 2005, Manu Sharma was granted regular bail, Jessica’s reluctant sister Sabrina seemed to finally give up on the case; it was a big setback to the prosecution.
Seven years after the crime was committed, on February 21, 2006 came the verdict, delivered by the Trial Court of the Fifth Judge in Delhi, SL Bhayana. It turned out to be one of the most debated judgements given by any court in Delhi. For the majority of people taking active interest in the case, it was seen as the predictable end of a hazardous journey on a bumpy road through the trial, prosecution and defence battles, winding up on a disappointing note for us.
For me, sitting in Arunachal Pradesh, the information, mostly coming through the print media-reaching late in remote hills, was all second-hand. All I had was the judgement and the one-sided versions in the media since the Delhi Police did not come out with any formal statement. And when they came, the biased and apparently intriguing statements – made by Dr KK Paul, then commissioner of Delhi Police and other senior officers – like, “Police Chief Says Jessica Case Was Fixed” and “Can Guilty Officers Be Punished?” caused a great mental turmoil to me, my family, and my team
There was no one to explain the Investigating Officer’s so-called controversial decision to send the empty bullet shells along with a questionnaire, as well as the bullets and metal pieces found on the scene of crime, along with the live cartridge found in the Tata Safari and the metal pieces recovered from the skull of the victim, for forensic examination. There was no one to explain how or why it was not a mere coincidence that prime witness Shayan Munshi introduced the two-gun theory during his well-orchestrated dramatic appearance in the court at a time when the forensic expert came out with a report supporting the accused persons. This was brought into the proceedings of the court of the committal magistrate against the prosecution’s persistent and justifiable arguments, with the defence claiming its legal privilege to examine or not to examine a witness, and to produce or not to produce a document as evidence.
There were several aspects of the case, deliberately made controversial, as it unfolded over the years in the court, where direct as well as circumstantial evidence was overlooked and side-tracks were used to obfuscate the case. The independent corroboration, deposition, and on-the-spot conduct of the alert Home Guard Shrawan Kumar, which led to the recovery of the Tata Safari vehicle, was unceremoniously dropped by the judge. Shrawan Kumar had tried to stop the fleeing Tata Safari and damaged the driver-side rear glass in the process, leaving excellent evidence which was brought before the court. This was not given credence while issues like the two-gun theory were introduced.
There was no one in Delhi Police to explain the finer points like how, in the absence of a regular medico-legal unit of a police post at Aashlok and Apollo hospitals, Jessica’s clothes could have been thrown away by unmindful staff while doctors worked on trying to save her life and that these clothes had no evidentiary value. These clothes were given greater weight than the direct corroborative evidence that established Manu Sharma’s presence at the scene of crime.
Excerpted with permission from Khaki on Khaki on Broken Wings: Cases That Shocked India, Amod K Kanth, Bloomsbury India.
