Chhattisgarh HC Convicts Amit Jogi Involved In NCP leader Ram Avatar Jaggi's Murder
Orders to surrender within 3 weeks
Raipur:The Chhattisgarh high court on Thursday convicted former MLA Amit Jogi, son of late former chief minister Ajit Jogi, of murder of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Ram Avatar Jaggi around 23 years ago, by setting aside a trial court’s acquittal.
Delivering the judgment in the sensational murder case, a division bench of Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Arvind Kumar Verma directed Junior Jogi to surrender within three weeks.
Jaggi who was the treasurer of the state unit of NCP, headed then by late former Union minister Vidya Charan Shukla, was shot dead on June four, 2003 in Raipur ahead of the Assembly elections in the state.
Junior Jogi’s father was then heading the Congress government in the state.
Weeks before Jaggi’s murder, Shukla had quit Congress and joined the NCP.
Jaggi who was a staunch loyalist of Shukla had followed him and left Congress to join the NCP.
Shukla was then considered the principal political rival of Senior Jogi in the state.
The case was later handed over to the CBI for investigation.
As many as 31 individuals including Amit Jogi were named as accused in the murder case.
While 28 of them were sentenced to life imprisonment after being convicted by the trial court in 2007, Junior Jogi was acquitted owing to lack of evidence.
Two other accused, Baltu Pathak and Surendra Singh, had turned approvers.
The CBI had challenged the acquittal in the Chhattisgarh high court in 2011.
But the high court had dismissed the plea on the grounds of delay.
Slain Jaggi’s son Satish then challenged the decision in the supreme court which referred the case back to the Chhattisgarh high court last November.
Junior Jogi said that he was not given the opportunity to be heard and described the conviction as grave injustice.
He said that he has full faith in the judicial system and will get relief from the supreme court.
Satish Jaggi has termed the verdict by the Chhattisgarh high court as ‘divine justice’.
“Truth has finally prevailed”, he said and added that the two-decade-wait for justice by his family has ended.
