New Delhi: The Delhi High Court on Monday sought the stands of Uttar Pradesh and Delhi governments on the bail plea of former Rajya Sabha MP D P Yadav`s son Vikas Yadav serving life term for killing his sister`s friend Nitish Katara nine years ago.
A bench of justices AK Sikri and Siddharth Mridul issued notices to the two state governments and sought their replies by October 21.
In his bail plea, filed through counsel Sumit Verma, Vikas said his appeal has been pending before the Delhi High Court for over three years now and it may take more than a year for beginning of the hearing of his appeal by the court.
Vikas sought bail claiming the Supreme Court earlier had given him the liberty to seek it in case of delay in hearing of his appeal.
He said that on the grounds of having a heavy workload, a high court`s bench had last month refused to list for early hearing his appeal against the trial court`s May 2008 order which had convicted and sentenced him along with his cousin Vishal Yadav and others for kidnapping and killing Katara. Vikas` counsel had submitted the matter was admitted in January this year and it may take more than a year for the court to take up the appeal. He had said that till then the accused was deprived of seeking any relief in the case.
In April this year, the high court had refused bail to Vikas but allowed him to attend his younger brother`s marriage ceremony while remaining in custody.
According to the prosecution, Vikas and Vishal had kidnapped Katara, son of a senior bureaucrat, from a marriage party in Ghaziabad on the night of February 16, 2002, and killed him as they were against Katara`s intimacy with their sister Bharati Yadav. A city court, while convicting both the accused for the murder, had awarded them life sentence in 2008.
PTI