THE JHARKHAND STORY DESK
Mumbai, Oct 23: The Bombay High Court on Wednesday suspended gangster Chhota Rajan’s life sentence for the 2001 murder of Mumbai’s hotelier Jaya Shetty and granted him bail.
A division bench comprising Justices Revati Mohite Dere and Prithviraj Chavan ordered Chhota Rajan to post a bond of Rs one lakh for his bail.
Despite the bail, Rajan will stay in jail because of his involvement in other criminal cases.
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Jaya Shetty was murdered over extortion
In May 2024, a special court sentenced Chhota Rajan to life imprisonment after convicting him in the murder of hotelier Jaya Shetty. Following this, Rajan appealed the conviction in the High Court, requesting that his sentence be suspended and bail granted during the appeal process.
On May 4, 2001, Jaya Shetty, the owner of the Golden Crown hotel in Gamdevi, central Mumbai, was shot and killed on the hotel’s first floor by two alleged members of Chhota Rajan’s gang.
The investigation indicated that Shetty had been threatened with extortion by Hemant Pujari, a member of Chhota Rajan’s gang, and was killed for failing to pay the demanded money.
Currently imprisoned at Tihar Jail in Delhi, Rajan is already serving a life sentence for the murder of veteran crime reporter J. Dey.
