Jessica case: Notice to witnesses for hostility

New Delhi, Feb 1: The Delhi High Court today served notices to 29 witnesses, who had turned hostile during the deposition in the trial court in the Jessica Lal murder case, and asked them to file their replies in separate affidavits by February 19.

While delivering the sentence on December 20, a division bench of Justices R S Sodhi and P K Bhasin had summoned all the 32 witnesses who had who had retracted from their statements.

In the morning, three witnesses-- Viren Shah, Mukesh Saini(both waiters) and Narayan Singh(guard) did not turn up and the court had issued non-bailable warrants (NBW).

As soon as the news was flashed on television(TV), the three approached the court in the afternoon for quashing of the warrant.

Three witnesses --Karan Rajput, Parikshit Sagar and Rupinder Singh --died in the intervening period and the case against them stands withdrawn.

Bollywood star Shyan Munshi, Shiv Dass Yadav, an electrician at Tamarind Court Cafe, and Jagannath Jha were among those eye-witnesses who had turned hostile during the trial in the Jessica Lal murder case.

Those served notices include Andaleeb Sehgal, ballistic expert Prem Sagar Minocha and Shankar Mukhia, an employee at Manu Sharma's farmhouse at Sambhalkha in Haryana, Abhijit Ghosal and Kulwinder Singh (known to another accused Yograj Singh, father of cricketer Yuvraj Singh).

Jessica was murdered by Manu Sharma alias Sidharth Vasist, the son of Haryana Congress politician Vinod Sharma, at socialite Bina Ramani's Tamarind Court restaurant in south Delhi on the internvening night of April 29-30, 1999.

UNI