"This was in my fate," was the immediate reaction of Manu Sharma, who was sentenced to life for murdering model Jessica Lall by the Delhi High Court on Wednesday.
"This was in my fate. This was decided by destiny," Sharma said to his close friend after the sentence was delivered.
All the three convicts, Manu Sharma, Vikas Yadav and Amardeep Singh Gill alias Tony, remained calm and controlled their emotions during the hour-long arguments.
Immediately after the sentence was pronounced, the three were escorted out of the courtroom of a Bench comprising Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin by police personnel, who had accompanied them from Tihar Jail.
Relatives and friends of the trio surrounded them for 15 minutes, as they were made to sit outside the courtroom while their lawyers busied themselves with formalities.
Manu's father Venod Sharma, a senior Congress leader, kept away from the court proceedings.
Sharma, who had attended the entire hearing on the appeal, was also not present in the court on Monday when his son was held guilty for murdering the model at the south Delhi restaurant on April 29-30, 1999.
However, controversial Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav, father of Vikas Yadav, sentenced to four years imprisonment with Amardeep Singh Gill alias Tony, an executive with a multi-national was present in the court.
Manu will appeal before the Supreme Court against his conviction and punishment, his counsel R K Nasseem said.
"We are going to file an appeal. Bina Ramani has wrongly been held as an eye witness," he told reporters immediately after the pronouncement of the sentence. "She (Bina) was not presented as an eye witness even by the investigating officer Surinder Sharma before the trial court."
