HC suspends Chhota Rajan's life sentence, grants bail

The Bombay high court on Wednesday suspended the life sentence of gangster Chhota Rajan in connection with the murder of hotelier Jaya Shetty here 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 1 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.

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.

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 May 4, 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.