17 May 2005 :

the Indian Supreme Court today commuted into life imprisonment the death penalty awarded to Paltan Mallah, main accused in the 1991 murder case of trade union leader Shankar Guha Niyogi. The court, however, upheld a judgement of the Madhya Pradesh High Court acquitting the remaining five accused in the case.
The Court said that since there had been a long gap between the murder of Niyogi and the final verdict in the case it would not be safe to sustain the death penalty awarded to Paltan Mallah by the High Court.
In the later half of 1980's Niyogi had started a major campaign against industrialists in Bhilai including Simplex Industries, demanding regularisation of services of the workers and payment of minimum wages. The prosecution alleged that a conspiracy was hatched by the industrialists to eliminate the trade union leader. The accused allegedly hired a killer who fired at Niyogi on the night of 27 September, 1991 killing him on the spot. On June 23, 1997, the trial court convicted the hired killer and sentenced him to death. The owners of Simplex Industries were also convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the case.