HC rejects RK Sharma's interim bail plea

PTI / May 24, 2006, 00:27 IST

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Rejecting RK Sharma's interim bail application, the court directed the trial judge to examine his request.

HC rejects RK Sharma's interim bail plea

NEW DELHI: Rejecting the interim bail application of suspended IPS officer R K Sharma, accused in the Shivani Bhatnagar murder case, the Delhi High Court on Tuesday directed the trial judge to examine his request for supply of a gist of certain statements made by her husband Rakesh Bhatnagar.
Justice Badar Durrez Ahmed rejected the interim bail application of Sharma, sought on the ground that he was suffering from a serious spinal ailment.
The High Court while refusing to grant Sharma interim bail directed that the matter be listed along with the regular bail plea moved by the suspended officer which is listed for hearing on July 27.
However, Sharma received a mild relief as the court directed the trial judge to examine afresh his plea for being supplied with the 'gist of the statements' made by Rakesh Bhatnagar before the investigating officer.

Justice Ahmed passed the order while dealing with the application moved by the Special Public Prosecutor S K Saxena challenging an earlier order passed by the Additional Sessions Judge directing the prosecution to supply the 'gist of the statements' made by Rakesh Bhatnagar.
The prosecution had taken the plea that Sharma was not entitled to the said material as what was recorded by the investigating officer in the case diary was the latter's 'personal observations' and not a record of the statements made by Shivani's husband.

However, counsel Sudershan Rajan and Qamar Ali appearing for Sharma complained that the prosecution was deliberately denying the material despite the fact that every accused was entitled to copies of the statements made by the witnesses as envisaged under Section 172 of the CrPC.
Sharma's counsel alleged that though Rakesh's statements were recorded by police on more than 20 occasions, copies of only seven of his statements were made available to them.
They submitted that the prosecution was fighting shy to furnish records of various other statements made by Rakesh as it apparently indicted several influential persons in the murder.
Saxena argued that Sharma's plea was not tenable as under Section 172 CrPC, an accused was not entitled to personal observations made by the investigating officer.
Following this, Justice Ahmed directed the trial judge to personally examine the case dairy to verify whether it contained the recorded statements of Rakesh or mere observations of the investigating officer.
The court ruled that if the case diary contained the statements made by Rakesh, then the defence would be entitled to the copies of the same.

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