UP politician, 3 others sentenced to life term in murder case of a legislator

Dehradun: Controversial Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav and three others were sentenced to life imprisonment by a special CBI court on Tuesday in connection with the 1992 Mahendra Singh Bhati murder case.

Pronouncing the quantum of punishment, Special CBI judge Amit Kumar Sirohi sentenced all the four convicts in the case to life imprisonment and imposed upon them a fine of Rs 1 lakh each, Yadav's counsel Rupendra Bhandari said.

Yadav will soon file an appeal in Uttarakhand High Court against the special CBI court's order, he said.

Apart from Yadav those sentenced to life imprisonment in the 22-year old case are Pal Singh, Karan Yadav and Praneet Bhati. All of them were held guilty in the case by the court on February 28 under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC.

Yadav had surrendered before the court on Monday in connection with the case and was immediately sent to Dehradun jail. The CBI court had issued an arrest warrant against Yadav when he did not appear in the court on February 28 on medical grounds.

Mahendra Singh Bhati, an MLA from Ghaziabad's Dadri area, was shot dead at the Dadri railway crossing in December 1992. Altogether seven persons including Yadav had been chargesheeted in the case out of which three died during the prolonged trial. The case was transferred to CBI Dehradun in 2000 on the direction of the Supreme Court after doubts were expressed about fair trial in the case in Uttar Pradesh where Yadav was an influential politician.