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Jessica case can be reinvestigated: Jethmalani
Source: PTI November 16, 2006
Senior advocate Ram Jethmalani, who is defending prime accused Manu Sharma in the Jessica Lal murder case, told the Delhi High Court on Thursday that he had no objection for a reinvestigation in the case.
Concluding his argument before a bench comprising Justice R S Sodhi and Justice P K Bhasin, he said entire circumstances were invented by the Police to falsely implicate Manu. Delhi Police has challenged the acquittal of Manu and others in the Jessica Lal murder case.
Submitting before the court about the circumstances which created 'doubt' in the prosecution case, Jethamalani said ballistic expert's report corroborated with the testimony of Shyan Munshi that there were two persons involved in Jessica's murder but police had tried to get another ballistic report to contradict the previous report to implicate Sharma.
Fashion designer Rohit Bal's information that Jessica was shot at could have been treated as the FIR in the case but Munshi's statement to police was converted into the FIR in the case, he added.
Even police had 'concocted' the liqour serving story in place of the 'real' story and witnesses like Bina
Ramani and her daughter Malini who were not present in the Tamarind Court cafe area when the incident took place, he argued.
The counsel also submitted that during the investigation, police had shown the photograph of Sharma to the witnesses so that they could identify his client easily in the court. Police had gone to Sharma's farm house at 1 am on April 30, 1999 and illegally took away his photo, pistol and his licence, he alleged.
A seizure memo was signed by two employees of the farm house but that was not made as court record, Jethmalani contended and said: "Photo was taken to create false evidence against Manu."
"Police failed to perform its statutory duty and acted as thief. So they are not entitled for any kind of credence. The prosecution story that the weapon was taken away by Sharma's friend Rabinder Sudan to make the case weak against Sharma is unbelievable on the face of it," Jethmalani said.
Pleading the court to draw an inference giving benefit of doubt to Sharma, the senior lawyer said 'all these lead to total rejection of the case as every kind of illegality took place and there are deficiencies in the investigation.'
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