Mumbai hotelier‘s murder in 2001: HC suspends Chhota Rajan‘s life sentence, grants him bail

On Wednesday 23 October, the Bombay High Court suspended the life sentence of gangster Chhota Rajan in connection with the murder of hotelier Jaya Shetty in 2001 and granted him bail in the case.

A division bench of Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan directed Rajan to furnish a bond of Rs one lakh for the bail.

Rajan will, however, continue to remain in jail in connection with other criminal cases.

In May this year, a special court convicted Rajan in the hotelier's murder case and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Jaya Shetty, who owned the Golden Crown hotel at Gamdevi in central Mumbai, was shot dead by two alleged members of Rajan's gang on the hotel's first floor on 4 May 2001.

A probe suggested that Shetty had received extortion calls from Hemant Pujari, a member of the Chhota Rajan gang, and was killed because of his failure to pay the money. Rajan, already serving a life term for the murder of veteran crime reporter J Dey, is currently lodged at the Tihar jail in Delhi.

Rajan filed an appeal in the HC against the conviction. He sought that the sentence be suspended and he be granted bail in the interim.