On Thursday, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s decision to find Munna Shukla guilty of Brij Bihari Prasad’s murder that took place in 1998. The court also sentenced them to life imprisonment. However, the apex court held the high court’s decision to acquit six other suspects, including former MP Surajbhan Singh, and granted them the benefit of the doubt.
It is pertinent to note that the CBI and Rama Devi, the wife of late Brij Bihari Prasad, had challenged the HC’s order passed in 2014 which acquitted the accused on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
The CBI and Rama Devi, the wife of former BJP MP Brij Bihari Prasad, had contested the high court’s 2014 judgment clearing the accused on the grounds of insufficient evidence. This led to the significant ruling by the highest court.
The Patna High Court’s decision clearing every accused person was partially overturned by a panel of Justices Sanjiv Khanna, Sanjay Kumar, and R Mahadevan, who also ordered convicted Mantu Tiwari and former MLA Shukla to turn themselves up within 15 days.
The bench ordered Tiwari and Vijay Kumar Shukla, also known as Munna Shukla, to surrender within 15 days after establishing charges against them under sections 302 (murder) and 307 (attempt to kill) of the IPC.
The high court ruled on July 24, 2014, that Surajbhan Singh, also known as Suraj Singh, Mukesh Singh, Lallan Singh, Mantu Tiwari, Captain Sunil Singh, Ram Niranjan Choudhary, Shashi Kumar Rai, Munna Shukla, and Rajan Tiwari should be given the benefit of the doubt after reviewing the prosecution’s case.
It had overturned the trial court’s judgment from August 12, 2009, which found them guilty and gave all of the defendants life sentences. The CBI and former BJP MP Rama Devi, who is Brij Bihari Prasad’s wife, had contested the high court’s 2014 decision clearing the accused on the grounds of insufficient evidence.
