New Delhi, Oct 24 : A Sessions Court will today pronounce the quantum of sentence to 10 persons, who were convicted in connection with the Connaught Place shootout case.

The court on October 16 had held suspended ACP S S Rathi and nine other Delhi Police personnel guilty under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder), 201 (destruction of evidence), 193 (giving false evidence) and 120B (conspiracy) of the IPC.

The other policemen are Inspector Anil Kumar, Sub Inspector Ashok Rana, Head Constables Shiv Kumar, Tejpal Singh, Mahavir Singh, Constables Sumer Singh, Subhash Chand, Sunil Kumar and Kothari Ram.

The court also ordered initiation of criminal proceedings against ballistic expert Roop Singh for giving false investigation report.

On March 31, 1997, a Crime Branch team of the Delhi police, led by Rathi pumped bullets into two businessmen -- Pradeep Goyal and Jajgjit Singh--, killing the two at the spot.

According to the prosecution, the team was chasing an alleged gangster. In Connaught Place, the team surrounded a Maruti Esteem car in which the alleged criminal was supposed to be going.

They then resorted to indiscriminate firing, killing the two businessmen in the process.

On September 8, 1998, the 10 accused policemen were charged with murder, criminal conspiracy and false evidence.

All the ten policemen, including Rathi were suspended when it was found that the two killed in the encounter were not the criminals but innocent civilians.

The CBI has claimed in its chargesheet in 1997 that in order to cover up their crime, the cops planted a pistol and a few cartridges inside the car to corroborate its claim that the first fire came from the businessmen.

But the forensic report disproved this theory that any shot was fired from the recovered weapon.

The sensational case had led to the removal of the then Delhi Police chief Nikhil Kumar, now a Congress MP. (ANI)