Jessica case: Witnesses case to another bench

New Delhi, Apr 23: The Delhi High Court today referred to another bench the case of hostile witnesses in the Jessica Lall murder case, calling the receipt of an anonymous letter ''disturbing''.

The Division Bench headed by R S Sodhi said, ''I passed you (Delhi Police) something which was anonymous. It is very disturbing and I want you to clarify if there is any nexus between investigators and lawyers, between investigators and experts, between investigators and court. I want that to be pointed out.'' Although the court was hearing the case of the witnesses who turned hostile in the case, the letter anonymously written to the Judge has given the case a ''twist''.

The contents of the letter are not known.

The court ordered the Special Investigation Team to find out the writer of the letter and intention behind writing it. Meanwhile, the Special Investigation Team of the Delhi Police in its report has said ''the hostile witnesses should be booked twice for lying in court''.

Sentencing Manu Sharma to life imprisonment, the Delhi High Court had also issued notices to the 32 witnesses on why action should not be taken against them for lying under oath in a court.

Satisfied with the replies of most of the witnesses on February 19, the court was to decide the fate of Shyan Munshi and two others today.

Munshi had said in the FIR that he had seen Manu fire two bullets, one in the air and the other at Jessica that hit her in the eye.

However, a few months later, he changed his version in court, saying he did not understand Hindi and could not decipher the police statement.

Shyan Munshi later said he had never lied in the trial court and blamed the police misquoting his statement instead. The SIT insists that Munshi knew Hindi and had indeed lied in the trial court.

UNI