A Dehra Dun court on Wednesday convicted and sentenced Samajwadi Party legislator and former UP minister Amarmani Tripathi, his wife Madhumani Tripathi and two others to life imprisonment in the Madhumita Shukla murder case.
Besides the Tripathi couple, Rohit Chaturvedi and Santosh Rai were handed down life terms by Sessions and District Judge V B Rai. Fifth accused in the case Prakash Pandey was, however, acquitted.
The court convicted the four accused on charges under Section 120 B and 302 of the IPC. They have also been fined Rs 50,000 each.
Shukla, a poetess, had alleged illicit relations with Amarmani. She was shot dead from close range in her two-room apartment in Lucknow's Paper Mill Colony on May 9, 2003.
Madhumita was pressing the Samajwadi Party MLA to marry her as she was pregnant with his baby.
The CBI had arrested Amarmani after a report from the Hyderabad-based Central Forensic Laboratory confirmed that the legislator's DNA matched with that of the foetus.
Earlier, keeping with the Supreme Court ruling, the Shukla case was transferred from Lucknow to Dehra Dun on the plea of the poetess' sister Nidhi who had alleged that a free and fair trial was not possible in a UP court as the prime accused was an MLA supporting the ruling Samajwadi Party and enjoyed political clout in the state.
The apex court had directed the Dehra Dun court to conduct the trial on a day-to-day basis and conclude it within six months.
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