Bengaluru, Oct 15 (PTI) The Karnataka cabinet on Thursday rejected the clemency plea of Shubha Shankar, who is serving life imprisonment for killing her fiancée three days after the betrothal in 2003.
In the notorious ‘Ring Road murder case’, law student Shubha along with her lover Arun Varma and his accomplices had killed 27-year-old Girish, who worked with a multinational company, on December 3, 2003.
“It (clemency plea) has been rejected because there is no scope in the law for it. We had taken an opinion from the Law Department. Based on their suggestion we have rejected the proposal,” State Home Minister Priyank Kharge told reporters as they asked about the decision taken in the cabinet meeting on Shubha’s plea.
Arun was Shubha’s one year junior in the law college, with whom she had fallen in love.
Shubha and Girish’s family knew each other but were unaware of her affair with Arun.
Shubha had taken Girish out for a dinner on December 3, 2003 and later she asked him to take near the HAL Airport to see the take-off and landing of aeroplanes.
As they stood watching, Arun and his gang attacked him with a shock absorber of a motorcycle. He suffered severe head injuries and died in hospital the following morning.
Police initially struggled to find a motive, as investigators found that Girish had no known enemies. They examined footage of the engagement ceremony and later discovered through the call detail records that Shubha had contacted Arun Varma, on the day before the murder.
The investigation subsequently focused on Shubha’s alleged role in the crime.
In a separate matter, Kharge said the cabinet had decided to move the Supreme Court against the High Court order striking down the enhanced reservation quotas for Scheduled Castes (SCs) and Scheduled Tribes (STs).
The Karnataka High Court had on October 12 struck down provisions of a 2022 state law that increased reservation for Scheduled Castes (SCs) from 15 to 17 per cent and for Scheduled Tribes (STs) from 3 to 7 per cent, holding that the enhanced quota breached the 50 per cent ceiling.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice K S Hemalekha held that Section-3 of the Karnataka Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Reservation of Seats in Educational Institutions and of Appointments or Posts in the Services under the State) Act, 2022, violated Articles 14 and 15 of the Constitution by taking quota above 50 per cent. PTI GMS GMS ROH
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