Shraddha Walkar murder case: Poonawala's trial to begin on Feb 24

The trial in the sensational Shraddha Walkar murder case is set to begin against her live-in partner and main accused Aaftab Amin Poonawala on February 24 as a magisterial court Monday remanded the judicial records to a sessions court.

Poonawala will now have to appear before a principal district and sessions judge at Saket in New Delhi on Friday.

According to the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), a case pertaining to heinous offences are remanded to the jurisdictional sessions court by the concerned Metropolitan Magistrate after filing of the chargesheet.

Meanwhile, Metropolitan Magistrate Aviral Shukla asked Poonawala, who was brought to the court physically by the Delhi Police, to file a fresh application before the sessions court after he orally sought permissions to carry religious books, pen and a notepad during future proceedings.

The Delhi Police on January 24 filed a voluminous 6,629-page chargesheet, giving details of investigation and evidence and list of witnesses against Poonawala who allegedly strangled his live-in partner Walkar and chopped her body into pieces.

Taking note of the chargesheet as mandated under the CrPC, the magistrate said the probe report was filed under Sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence or giving false information to screen offender) of the Indian Penal Code.

"Scrutiny of documents is complete... Section 302 of the IPC is exclusively triable by a sessions court. Accordingly, the accused be produced before the principal district and sessions judge on February 24 at 2 pm," the magistrate said.

"The case is now committed to the sessions court," he added.

When asked by the court if he had received a physical copy of the chargesheet, Poonawala replied in the affirmative.

He then requested he provided with a pen, notepad and law books, besides the religious text, for assisting his lawyer M S Khan.

Khan, representing Poonawala, informed the court that two applications were already filed in this court, one seeking the accused's educational certificates and stationery such as notepad and pencil, and the other for a proper 'soft copy of the chargesheet'.

His lawyer also said the footage, related to the case, provided to him in the pen drive were not in sequence.

"The footage where Shraddha Walkar is talking on the Practo App is in small parts of 10-12 seconds duration each. They are not in a series or sequence," he said.

The investigating officer (IO) replied that the soft copy of the chargesheet provided to Khan was divided into various folders and also included various footage such as those from the Practo App, crime scene photographs and pictures of the recoveries made during the investigation.

He said that everything pertaining to the investigation was already provided to Khan in the same manner as received by the police.

Khan agreed that the pen drive provided to him consisted of two parts -- the chargesheet and the FIR folders.

"Whatever is available, we will provide. The idea is to provide the chargesheet to the accused," the magistrate said.

He also asked Khan to 'coordinate' with Poonawala.