Counsel trains guns on prosecution

ROPAR: Proceedings for framing of corruption charges against former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and his family members in a special court here failed to take off on Tuesday as his counsel sought to turn the tables on the prosecution, alleging that "it had manipulated court records and had tried to impede the fair trial by misleading the court".
Additional district and sessions judge SK Goel served a notice on the prosecution on the matter and listed the case for hearing on September 30.
Badal''s team of counsels, led by former advocate general HS Mattewal, raised a storm in the court when the matter pertaining to prosecution sanction in case of Chandigarh police ASI Nirabhjit Singh, who is a co-accused in the case, came up for discussion.
Arguing the case for the defence, Mattewal took exception to the manner in which the prosecution had reportedly "inserted the copy of prosecution sanction to the challan without duly informing the court".
As the copy of the prosecution sanction was not attached to the challan filed in the court, Mattewal argued that it "was surreptitiously tagged to the challan" at a later date without informing the judge.
Mattewal demanded that a statement of the court''s reader be recorded to verify the facts. Prosecution counsels, led by Uday Lalit, argued that no sanction was required from the UT government for launching prosecution against Nirabhjit and that the entire matter be set aside.
The judge, however, said he would look into the matter to ascertain whether the court record had been manipulated and if he detected any foul play, it would be reported to the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
Earlier, as soon as the proceeding started, defence counsels sought the case to be adjourned as it was listed for hearing in the Supreme Court on October 1.
The judge turned down the appeal saying that the apex court had not barred it from going ahead with the case. However, as the judge asked the prosecution to start arguments on framing of charges against Badal and others,Mattewal interrupted and preferred five applications requesting the court to summon documents prepared by the Vigilance Bureau to frame charges against Badal, his family members and two co-accused — Harbans Lal and Nirabhjit Singh.