Ghaziabad: The CBI court hearing the Aarushi case on Wednesday rejected a petition of dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar seeking summoning of journalist Nalini Singh and CBI DSP Anuj Arya as court witnesses, and said it was a delaying tactic.
The special court asked the defence to initiate final arguments on its part from tomorrow.
"There is no question of summoning Nalini Singh and Anuj Arya as court witnesses in the case. This petition was submitted with an aim to delay the start of final arguments on part of the defence, so it is rejected," the Court of Additional Sessions Judge Shyam Lal said.
It said that Talwars` lawyer Tanveer Ahmed Mir, on October 15, had verbally told this court that defence would start its arguments from October 21, but now they submitted a new petition, which shows it was submitted with an intention to delay the start of final arguments.
The CBI court also referred to the Supreme Court`s recent observation that the Talwars have been adopting dilatory tactics.
Yesterday, Talwars had submitted a fresh petition in the special CBI court seeking summoning of journalist Nalini and Arya as court witnesses in Arushi- Hemraj murder trial.
Talwars, who are being tried for the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj, said in their petition that Singh had on a programme telecast by private news channel on October 14 said that she had been quizzed by CBI officer Arya in 2008 in connection with the case.
She was asked by the CBI about a Nepalese song being telecast on a Nepalese channel owned by her on the intervening night of May 15-16, 2008, when the double murder occurred.
According to the petition, Nalini had said that after she gave details of Nepalese songs being telecast on that fateful night, Arya told her that the information provided by her matched with the revelations made by servants during their narco test.
In their petition, Talwars said that Arya had told Nalini that according to narco test, the three initial suspects - Krishna, a compounder of Rajesh Talwar, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal, both helpers, were in Hemraj`s room on that fateful night and were watching Nepalese songs.
Talwars had also added that the CBI had made Arya the Number-126 prosecution witness, but he was never examined in the court, adding that any witness can be called at any stage for the proper adjudication of the case.
They contended that there were provisions in criminal procedure code empowering even the appellate courts to lead further evidence even after final disposal of the case.
In its closure report, the CBI said that there is no evidence against the servants except the narco test, which was not reliable. The report stated that servants would not have assembled in the house of Talwars when both doctors were present in their house.
Referring to the SC ruling of 2010 in Selvi Vs State of Karnataka case, the CBI court said today, "Even when the subject has given consent to undergo any of these tests, the results by themselves cannot be admitted as evidence because the subject doesn`t exercise conscious control over the responses during the administration of the test."
Umesh, the driver of Talwars, had said in his statement that he had seen Rajesh, Nupur, Aarushi and Hemraj at 9.30 pm on May 15, 2008, which suggests there were four people in the house on the fateful night, the court said.
During the arguments, special CBI public prosecutor RK Sani also said that Khukri was not recovered on the basis of narco test conducted on servants, and it was seized by the CBI team during course of investigation.
"Talwars are misleading the case by submitting such application. As per Supreme Court ruling, narco test in not admissible," Saini told the court.
Earlier, Saini expressed apprehensions of a possible threat to him, and said "anything can happen" with him outside the court.
"My lord, I want to bring this in your knowledge. He (Rajesh Talwar) is staring me. Anything can happen to me outside, even stones can be pelted on me," he told the Judge.
Saini had heated arguments with one of the lawyers of Talwars`, who said "he would see him outside the courtroom."
