Jessica Lal murder case: High Court seeks Delhi government reply on Manu Sharma's plea for parole

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today sought the city government's response on the plea of Jessica Lal murder case convict Manu Sharma, seeking a month-long parole to appear in LLB semester exams.

A bench of Justice Ashutosh Kumar issued notice to the Delhi government and asked it to file a status report by December 4 on the plea of Sharma who has claimed that his exams commence from December 26.

Senior advocate Sudhir Nandrajog, appearing for Sharma, told the court that his client also needed to attend a two-day personal contact programme from December 11 and to maintain social ties as he got married recently.

Sharma, who is undergoing a life term in the murder case, has completed a post-graduate diploma in Human Rights and now is pursuing a Bachelor's in Law course from Annamalai University.

His plea also said that he has been in prison for 13 years now and during this period he has been helping inmates and their children by providing them education and other study material.

Sharma was earlier granted 30-day parole on December 26, 2014 to appear for his post-graduation exams with a condition that he would keep away from the area around the residence of Jessica and her family members.

Sharma, son of former Union Minister Venod Sharma, was awarded life imprisonment by the high court in December 2006 for killing Jessica Lall in 1999.

The trial court had acquitted him, but the Delhi High Court had reversed it and the Supreme Court had upheld the high court's decision in April 2010.

Lall was shot dead by Sharma after she had refused to serve him liquor at the Tamarind Court restaurant owned by socialite Bina Ramani at Qutub Colonnade in south Delhi's Mehrauli.