Overview

• The Supreme Court upheld life imprisonment for Shubha Shankarnarayan, Arun Verma, Venkatesh and Dinesh after finding trial and high court convictions sufficiently supported by evidence.
• A bench of Justices M M Sundresh and Aravind Kumar stayed the convicts’ arrest and suspended their sentences for eight weeks to allow submission of mercy petitions under Article 161 of the Constitution.
• The judgment characterized the case as “misjudged rebellion” and “romantic delusion” stemming from emotional turmoil caused by a forced engagement.
• Two of the accused were teenagers at the time of the crime and all four have maintained unblemished records in custody, factors the court cited in stressing their reformative potential.
• In addition to upholding the main murder convictions, the court affirmed Shubha Shankarnarayan’s separate conviction for destruction of evidence and noted that call-detail records were critical in establishing the conspiracy.