HC grants two days time to Vikas to produce additional witnesses

New Delhi, Sep 25 (UNI) Delhi High Court today give two days time to Vikas Yadav, son of Uttar Pradesh politician D P Yadav and the main accused in the Nitish Katara murder case, to produce only four out of the twelve defence witnesses he had asked for before the trial court.

Justice V B Gupta said not much time could be granted to Vikas as all the defence and prosecution witnesses have already been examined in the case.

However, the court allowed only four out of the 12 witnesses requested by him to be examined. It has directed that all four should be examined within two days as no further time will be granted to them.

Justice Gupta asked the accused to produce Tanu Choudhury (estranged wife of key witness Ajay Katara), Circle Officer (CO) Ghaziabad city, one journalist each from Jain TV and Star TV for recording the statements on September 27 and 28.

The High Court earlier had directed the trial court to conclude the trial by September 28, which meant that the defence witnesses should be examined by then.

Following the High Court order, the trial court on September 20 had concluded the examination of all the witnesses.

The High Court had earlier directed the accused to conclude recording of statements of his witnesses by September 20, saying no further opportunity would be provided to him to defend his case.

Adhering to the deadline set by the High Court, the city court had concluded the trial and examined all the defence witnesses and fixed four dates of October 6, 8, 9 and 10 for hearing the final arguments of the case.

The examination of defence witnesses had started on July three and the accused produced a total of 24 witnesses. After the conclusion of these witnesses Vikas had sought more time to examine additional 12 witnesses, but the court allowed examination of only four people.

UNI