Advocate Shubha Shankarnarayan gets bail after 4 years in jail

NEW DELHI/BANGALORE: Advocate Shubha Shankarnarayan, sentenced to life for murdering her fiance, has been granted bail on Monday by the Supreme Court. The top court granted the bail after Shubha's counsel contended that she had spent 52 months in jail, while her fellow accused have been granted bail. An apex court bench headed by then Chief Justice of India P Sathasivam had rejected a bail plea of Shubha, now 31, in November 2011. A fast-track court had in 2010 sentenced Shubha, Arun Verma, Venkatesh and Dinesh to a life term for the murder of BV Girish, working with Intel, on Dec 3, 2003. Officials of Central Jail, Bangalore, said, "Shubha is on parole. We're not sure when and for what reasons she availed of parole as the exact date is not available now." It was a wellplanned murder, executed to precision on December 3, 2003. Seven years later, law student Shubha Shankaranarayan was sentenced to life imprisonment by a fast track court for killing her fiance BV Girish. The victim, Girish, 27, was a software engineer with Intel and got engaged to Shubha, then 21 and a final-year student of BMS College of Law, on November 30, 2003. The wedding was fixed for April 11, 2004. The two families were neighbours in Banashankari II Stage knew each other for 15 years. Four days later, on December 3, 2003, Shubha convinced Girish to take her out for dinner and made him stop his bike near the Jumbo point on Ring Road, between Indiranagar and Koramangala, on the pretext of wanting to watch aircraft take off and land at the HAL Airport. While Girish was busy watching an aircraft in motion, a man attacked him with a blunt object from behind and sped away on a bike that was waiting for him. Shubha took Girish to Manipal Hospital, where he succumbed. In her complaint, Shubha said an unidentified man assaulted her fiance and fled. Not convinced with her version, police collected call details of her mobile phone, prior to and after Girish's murder that night. Records showed numerous calls made to a number belonging to Arun Verma, then 19 and Shubha's junior in college. Cops picked up Arun and confronted him with the evidence. He confessed to the murder and, based on his statement, Shubha, and two others, Venkatesh and Dinakar, were arrested. Probe revealed Shubha was in love with Arun and was engaged to Girish against her will. The lovebirds then hatched a plan to eliminate Girish. Arun hired Venkatesh to kill Girish; his cousin Dinakar helped him plan the murder. In July 2010, a sessions court held all four guilty of murder, and sentenced them to life term in jail. The high court upheld the judgment. "Though the prosecution has not placed any evidence as to the actual conversation that had taken place between the accused, the call details, call history sheets extracted in this judgment would clearly indicate that they were in close association with each other. The accused had entered into a criminal conspiracy to do away with the deceased, and they were co-conspirators. The conduct of the accused before the incident, at the time of incident and after the incident is compatible with their guilt and incompatible with their innocence, and no other hypothesis except hypothesis of guilt of accused can be drawn," the high court had observed. Stuff potboilers are made of The sensational murder case has caught the fancy of filmmakers. An all-woman crew is making a Kannada potboiler Ring Road Shubha, though the makers insist there's no connection. The film is directed by Priya Belliappa, a graduate of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), Pune. The crew has Ranjini Ravindra Das as producer, Rekha Rani (scriptwriter), Reshmi Sarkar (cinematographer), Maryann D'Souza (editor) and Vani Harikrishna as music director. Newcomer Khushi is playing the title role; Nikita Thukral and Duniya Vijay also feature in the cast. -TOI