Chhattisgarh HC Convicts Amit Jogi in 2003 Murder Case

The Chhattisgarh High Court convicted Amit Jogi, son of the state's former Chief Minister Ajit Jogi, on Thursday in the 2003 murder case of Nationalist Congress Party leader Ramavatar Jaggi, overturning a trial court acquittal from nearly two decades ago and ordering him to surrender within three weeks.

The ruling, delivered by a division bench led by Chief Justice Ramesh Sinha and Justice Arvind Kumar Verma, marks a major turn in a case that has lingered for 23 years. Ramavatar Jaggi, who served as the state treasurer for the NCP and was a close associate of party leader V.C. Shukla, was shot dead on June 4, 2003, in Raipur, just months before Chhattisgarh's first assembly elections. At the time, Ajit Jogi led the Congress government in the newly formed state, and Shukla had recently defected from Congress to the NCP, positioning him as a key political rival.

The initial investigation by state police was transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation, which named 31 individuals as accused, including Amit Jogi as the alleged principal conspirator. In 2007, a Raipur trial court convicted 28 of the accused and sentenced them to life imprisonment, while acquitting Amit Jogi due...