On 29 April 1999, Lal was one of several models working at an unlicensed bar at a party in the Tamarind

Court restaurant, which was within the Qutub Colonnade, a refurbished palace overlooking the Qutub
Minar in Mehrauli. By midnight the bar had run out of liquor and it would, in any event, have ceased
sales at 12.30 am. After midnight, Manu Sharma walked in with his friends and demanded to be served
liquor. Lal refused to serve Manu Sharma, who was with a group of three friends. He was ready to offer
Jessica ₹ 1000 for it. Sharma then produced a .22 calibre pistol and fired it twice: the first bullet hit the
ceiling which was to serve as a warning to Jessica not to refuse liquor, but when Jessica refused again,
Sharma fired again and the second hit Jessica in the head and killed her.[1][2][3]

A mêlee followed the shooting, during which Sharma and his friends — Amardeep Singh Gill, Vikas
Yadav, and Alok Khanna — left the scene.[1] Thereafter, it was reported that contact could not be made
with Sharma's family, including his mother, and that they were "absconding".[4] After eluding police for
a few days, with the assistance of accomplices, Khanna and Gill were arrested on 4 May and Sharma on
6 May. The murder weapon was not recovered and was thought to have been passed on to a friend who
had been visiting from the US and who may subsequently have returned there.[2][3]

The case by now involved several prominent people. Manu Sharma himself was the son of Venod
Sharma, who at the time of the shooting was a former minister of the national government and by the
time of the subsequent trial was a minister in the Haryana state government. Yadav was the son of
another state politician, D. P. Yadav. Bina Ramani, who had redeveloped the premises where the party
took place, was a socialite and [[fashion designer

er]] who allegedly had contacts in high places and whose daughter Malini Ramani knew Lal as a fellow-
model. Singh managed the distribution of Coca-Cola in Chandigarh.[5]

Amit Jhigan, an accomplice of Sharma, was arrested on 8 May and charged with conspiring to destroy
evidence, as it was believed that he had retrieved the pistol from its original hiding place near the bar.
While he was remanded in custody, Yadav was still at large and it had also proved impossible to locate
his father, who had promised to deliver his son to the police.[3]

It had by now become clear that the party, which was claimed to be a farewell function for Ramani's
husband, George Mailhot, had in fact been open to anyone willing to pay. Ramani, her husband, and her
daughter Malini were arrested on the same day as Jhigan. They were charged with operating an illegal
bar and, although released on bail, had to surrender their passports. There were several lines of inquiry
regarding the family, including whether or not Ramani — a UK national — had the necessary permits to
operate a business in India. Another concern was to establish whether or not she had concealed
evidence by ordering the cleaning up of blood at the premises, although by 19 May it had been
announced that charges relating to this alleged destruction of evidence could not be brought.[3][5][6]
Yadav presented himself to Delhi police on 19 May but was able immediately to leave because he had
acquired anticipatory bail papers. He claimed to have been in Bombay and elsewhere during the
previous few weeks, and refused to comment regarding whether he had been in contact with his father.
He admitted that Sharma had stayed with him on the night of the murder but denied being present
himself at the Tamarind Club or having any knowledge of the events that had occurred there until the
next day, when he told Sharma to surrender to the police. A complex legal situation involving his
paperwork meant that the police did not arrest Yadav at that time.[6]

Subsequently, he had short spells in custody and longer periods when he was freed on bail, with
decisions and overturnings of them being made in various court hearings.

On 15 December 2006, the High Court ruled that Sharma was guilty based on existing evidence,
and also criticised the trial judge, S. L. Bhayana.[17]

The judgement said that the lower court had been lax in not considering the testimony of witnesses
such as Bina Ramani and Deepak Bhojwani, stating regarding the treatment of the latter's evidence
that

With very great respect to the learned judge [Bhayana], we point out that this manner of testing the
credibility of the witness is hardly a rule of appreciation of evidence. ... Obviously, this reflects total
lack of application of mind and suggests a hasty approach towards securing a particular end, namely
the acquittal."[17]

In particular, the key witness Munshi came in for serious criticism. The judgement says, of his earlier
repudiation of the First Information Report that "[Munshi] is now claiming that the said statement was
recorded in Hindi while he had narrated the whole story in English as he did not know Hindi at all ...
We do not find this explanation of Munshi to be convincing." Regarding Munshi's testimony that two
guns were involved, the judgement says: "In court he has taken a somersault and came out with a
version that there were two gentlemen at the bar counter. ... [W]e have no manner of doubt that on
this aspect he is telling a complete lie."[17]

On 20 December 2006, Sharma was punished with a sentence of life imprisonment and a fine. The
other accused, Yadav and Gill, were fined and given four years' rigorous imprisonment. A plea for
Sharma to be sentenced to death was rejected on the grounds that the murder, although intentional,
was not premeditated and Sharma was not considered to be a threat to society.[18]

Sharma's lawyer announced that the decision would be appealed in Supreme Court because the
judgement was wrong in holding Bina Ramani to be a witness
In May 2013, Delhi High Court ordered prosecution of Bollywood actor Shayan Munshi and a ballistic
expert, P. S. Manocha, for turning hostile. The court cleared a further 17 people whose allegedly
hostile position was under review. Ten other people had been discharged from claims of perjury in
earlier hearings and three had died since the original trial.[