Mumbai: Pravin Mahajan was on Monday convicted by a sessions court here for the murder of his elder brother and BJP leader Pramod Mahajan last year.

Sessions Judge S P Davare convicted Pravin for murder and house trespass with intention to commit a serious offence.

The court will pronounce the sentence on Tuesday.

Pravin had fired four bullets at his elder brother at the latter's residence in April 22, 2006. Mahajan died after battling for his life for 12 days in the hospital.

While convicting Pravin, the Sessions judge relied on the statements of Pramod's wife Rekha, servant Mahesh and Pramod's own statement made to BJP leader and brother-in-law Gopinath Munde while on his way to the hospital. The Judge said the prosecution's case inspires "every confidence".

The court also ruled out the SMS theory, which created confusion in the case.

Special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told reporters outside the court room that they would study the judgement before deciding on what sentence they would plead for in the case.

"After we read the judgement we will know on what grounds Pravin has been found guilty and whether the case falls in the rarest of rare cases. Depending on this we shall seek the sentence for him," Nikam said.

During the trial, special public prosecutor Niteen Pradhan had sought death penalty for Pravin.

The police had filed a charge sheet of around 650-pages before metropolitan court on July 14 last year.

Initially the court submitted a list of 58 witnesses, but, however, only 32 witnesses were examined in the entire process. It included Pramod's widow Rekha, daughter Poonam, sister Pradnya and brother-in-law Gopinath Munde while defence examined Pravin as a witness on oath before the court apart from his wife Sarangi and a computer expert.

Judge Davare began dictating the judgement from December six.

Source : Agencies