The court, which fast-tracked hearing in the appeal filed on March 13, 2006, relied heavily on socialite Bina Ramani’s deposition.

Treating her as a reliable witness, the bench said she was “the only brave person present in that party to muster courage to face the shooter while others who claim to be socialites did not have the courage to raise even a little finger to apprehend the culprit.”

Attacking the trial court order on several grounds, Justice Sodhi read out from the 61-page judgment which recorded that Bina Ramani had identified Manu, Gill, Alok Khanna and Vikas Yadav as the persons present at the Tamarind Court at the time of the incident and also saw Manu firing the fatal shot at Jessica.

The bench said that “the trial court, instead of itself reading the evidence by Bina Ramani, proceeded to wrongly record acceptance of this submission of the prosecutor... this kind of approach of the trial court has caused grave miscarriage of justice”.

Saying that the two-gun theory was “a concoction of the defence,” the bench noted that Manu had a licensed pistol of .22 bore which he had not produced to establish his innocence, that he even abandoned his Tata Safari while fleeing. The live cartridge, recovered from the vehicle later found in Noida, also went against Manu.

We have No hesitation in holding Manu sharma guilty: HC

UNSUSTAINABLE VERDICT: The High Court said, “From material on record, the judgment under challenge appears to us to be an immature assessment of material on record which is self-contradictory, based on misreading of material and unsustainable.”

... contd.