SC reserves judgement on Akhilesh's petition

New Delhi, Apr 19 (UNI) The Supreme Court today reserved its judgement on a petition filed by an independent MLA from Uttar Pradesh having criminal background challenging the Allahabad High Court judgement, canceling his bail in a murder case.

The petitioner Akhilesh Kumar Singh, who is contesting UP Assembly elections from jail and is facing 40 criminal cases, in his petition contended that all material witnesses including eye witnesses have already been examined by the trail court and now there is no justification for keeping him under detention.

Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani appearing for the petitioner contended before the bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, Justices R V Raveendran and D K Jain, that the statements of the witnesses including wife of the deceased Bharti Pandey and two other eye witnesses -- Brijesh Shukla and Man Singh were not recorded immediately after the occurrence but were recorded after a lapse of time which is not proper and creates doubts about the credibility of the witness.

Senior counsel Ranjeet Kumar appearing for the complainant alleged that many witnesses were intimidated and terrorised by the accused and the High Court had recorded in its judgement that the accused had misused his liberty while on bail.

Few witnesses in the case have not been able to depose freely because of the terror of the petitioner, he said.

Rakesh Pandey was allegedly killed by the petitioner and the prosecution has been trying to help the accused by deliberately not producing the petitioner before the trail court on security grounds and the petitioner was produced in the court only after the SC UNI