Commander Nanavati, accused under section 302, was initially declared not guilty by a jury, but the verdict was dismissed by the Bombay High Court and the case was retried as a bench trial.

Kawas Manekshaw "K. M." Nanavati (May 1925 — 24 July 2003), a Parsi, was a Commander in the Indian Navy who had settled in Bombay with Sylvia (née King), his English-born wife and their two sons and a daughter.

Nanavati dropped his family at the Metro Cinema, for the film Tom Thumb he had promised to take them to, but excused himself and headed straight to confront Prem Ahuja.

"[3] Nanavati went to the naval base, collected his pistol on a false pretext from the stores along with six bullets, completed his official duties and proceeded to Ahuja's office.

Nanavati headed straight to confess his crime to Mr. Michael Benjamin Samuel, the Indian Jewish Provost Marshal of the Western Naval Command and, on his advice, turned himself over to the Deputy Commissioner of Police, John Lobo.

After Sylvia's confession, a calm and collected Nanavati dropped his family at the movie theatre, drove to his naval base and according to the Navy log, had acquired a gun and rounds, under a false pretext.

Ahuja's servant Anjani testified that four shots were fired in quick succession and the entire incident took under a minute to occur, thus ruling out a scuffle.

He had previously worked as Defence Attaché to V. K. Krishna Menon, while the latter was high commissioner to the United Kingdom, and had grown close to the Nehrus during that time.

[citation needed] During the time of Nanavati's trial and sentencing, Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister of India and his sister, Vijayalakshmi Pandit, was governor of Bombay state.

[citation needed] All of those advantages may have, in other circumstances, availed Nanavati nothing, for a pardon might have been seen by the press and public at other times as a blatant misuse of power to help the crony of an influential political family.

However, public opinion, in the largely conservative country, was decidedly in favour of Nanavati, seen as an upright naval officer with middle class values and a strong sense of honour.

[citation needed] Public opinion held the sentence of life in prison was too harsh and supported a proposal, mooted by the Blitz, to grant a pardon to the naval officer.

The Blitz magazine played a significant part in raising public opinion in favour of Nanavati and keeping the issue alive for over three years until the pardon was granted.

[citation needed] Nanavati spent 3 years in prison; it was feared that a pardon for him could elicit an angry reaction from the Sindhi community to which the Ahuja family belonged.

[7] At around this time, the government received an application for a pardon from Bhai Pratap, a Sindhi trader who had been a participant in the Indian independence movement, and had been convicted for misusing an import license.