Supreme Court reserves verdict on Shakereh murder case

The fate of self-styled godman Swamy Shraddhananda found guilty of killing his wife Shakereh, the grand daughter of late Dewan of Mysore Sir Mirza Ismail, hung in balance as the Supreme Court reserved its verdict on sending him to the gallows or sentencing him to a life term.

After hours of deliberations over the matter, spanning more than seven days, the three-judge bench of the Apex Court hearing the case decided to reserve the order and pronounce it at a later date. “The order is reserved and would be pronounced later”, said the bench comprising Justices B N Agarwal, G S Singhvi and Aftab Alam on Wednesday.

Earlier, the Karnataka Government counsel Sanjay Hegde pleaded before the bench that Shraddhananda should be given capital punishment as he had killed his wife in a most diabolical manner 17 years ago.

Shakereh, who had divorced former diplomat Akbar Khaleeli in 1985 after 21 years of marriage, had married Swamy Shraddhananda in 1986 as she was keen to bear a male child. When Shakereh found that she could not bear a male child, she was about the break the marriage with Shraddhananda five years later in 1991.

Shraddhananda, who had realized this, devised a plan to kill his wife, who had already executed a general power of attorney in his favour. “Had the marriage broken, Shraddhananda would have been reduced to a pauper”, Hegde said.

Hence, the self-styled godman administered sleeping pills to her and buried her alive in a pit dug up in her bungalow in Richmond Town in Bangalore. “After murdering her in cold blood, he went on to live in luxury as if nothing had happened”, the counsel said arguing in favour of death penalty for the “rarest of rare” case.

The gruesome crime had come to light only a year later when her daughter from the first marriage Sabah Khaleeli lodged a complaint with the police, which on suspicion dug up the pit in the bungalow and exhumed the skeletal remains of her body.

Shraddhananda’s counsel U U Lalit submitted that his client, who is already 72 years old, may be handed down life imprisonment.

The conviction of Shraddhananda is already a settled issue as the Supreme Court in its May 2007 judgement found little difficulty in proclaiming him guilty for the crime. But, the Court had given a split verdict with Justice S B Sinha awarding him life imprisonment and Justice Markandeya Katju confirming the death sentence awarded by the trial court and the Karnataka High Court.