MUMBAI: Peter Mukerjea and wife Indrani Mukerjea, both accused in the Sheena Bora murder case have moved the Bombay high court to challenge an order of the trial court that allowed a police officer to testify details given by co-accused-turned- approver of the crime. They want the HC to intervene and stay his deposition to prevent “miscarriage of justice”. The testimony of the cop, police subinspector Ganesh Dalvi, was in violation of the law on admissibility of evidence said the Mukerjeas.
The trial into the April 24, 2012 murder case had begun last month with the first witness being a Khar police officer who had recorded the first information report given by Indrani’s driver Shyamwar Rai, arrested on August 21, 2015, in another case of alleged illegal arms possession. Rai, Indrani and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna were the initial three accused of Sheena’s murder. Sheena, said the police, was Indrani’s biological daughter and not her sister as claimed till then.
Rai, later turned approver, was granted pardon by trial judge H S Mahajan last June and is a prime witness against the Mukerjeas and Khanna. On February 23, as Dalvi was being examined by Central Bureau of Investigation(CBI) prosecutor as the first of its witnesses. He was about to depose in detail what Rai had confessed to the police about Sheena when Peter’s counsel Shrikant Shivade and Indrani’s Sudeep Pasbola objected. They said such testimony was impermissible but the court partly rejected their objection and allowed parts of Dalvi’s testimony to be taken on record.
In law, what a witness tells the police is not admissible as evidence against an accused. While Peter’s plea was mentioned before Justice Rekha Sondur Baldota on Monday citing urgency since the trial is to resume on March 16, she said it would be heard in due course. The matter is scheduled to be heard on March 15. The HC order would pave the path for how the trial would progress