In a significant development, a Delhi court on Saturday allowed police to take fresh fingerprints of the accused, including Sanjeev Nanda, in the eight-year-old BMW hit-and-run case, the trial of which is at its fag end.
Additional Sessions Judge Vinod Kumar asked all the five accused to appear before the court of the metropolitan magistrate concerned on September 3 to give their fingerprints to the investigating officer of the case.
The order assumes significance as it has come at the end of the trial spanning eight years and the accused apprehended that it might be a ploy to reopen probe in the case in which most of the prosecution witnesses have already been examined.
Besides Nanda, co-accused Manik Kapoor, Rajeev Gupta, Bholanath and Shyam Singh will give their fingerprints to the police.
Allowing the plea seeking fresh fingerprints of the accused to match them with those taken by the police from the car that mowed down six people in 1999, the ASJ asked the IO to submit the CFSL experts' report on September 19.
On Friday, the court had reserved its order on the prosecution plea.
Earlier, Nanda's counsel Ramesh Gupta had said though the prosecution's move was apparently to "delay" the trial, he was willing to comply with the directions of the court.
Nanda, grandson of former navy chief S M Nanda, who was driving his BMW in an "inebriated" state, had run over six people in the wee hours of January 10, 1999, near Lodhi Hotel, prosecution had alleged.