Indrani Mukerjea's lawyer opposes charges of murder attempt, cheating

Mumbai: The lawyer of Indrani Mukerjea, prime accused in the Sheena Bora murder case, today argued before the special CBI court here that charges such as attempt to murder and cheating were not maintainable against her.

The court is hearing arguments on framing of charges.

Indrani's lawyer Sudeep Passbola contended that charges under IPC sections 307 (attempt to murder), 420 (cheating), 468 (forgery) were not applicable against his client.

"The charge of 307 is proposed in the first charge sheet which was filed on November 19 last year. However, statement of Mikhail (Indrani's son from an earlier relationship and Sheena's brother) was recorded in June this year," he said.

Passbola argued that for the charge under section 307, there must have been an actual attempt on Mikhail's life. CBI had not specified when and where this attempt took place.

According to CBI, when Indrani and others killed Sheena, they had also planned to eliminate Mikhail after drugging him.

"Nothing poisonous was given to Mikhail, he was offered a drink and he threw it away. It was only his apprehension that the drink was spiked," Passbola argued.

CBI had also pressed charges of cheating and forgery regarding two documents, he said. One was the resignation letter of Sheena sent to her employer after her death; the second was termination of her house rent agreement.

Indrani forged the two documents to make it appear that Sheena was alive, as per the CBI.

Passbola said no one was actually 'cheated', neither Sheena's employer Reliance Metro, nor her landlord, by these two documents.