Access allowed to Manu Sharma's 1999 interrogation

Just over a month after the Delhi police having registered a fresh case in connection with the Jessica Lal murder, a city court has allowed authorities to make copies of a sealed video recording of the interrogation of Siddharth Vashisht alias Manu Sharma conducted by the police soon after investigations in the murder commenced.

The video cassette containing the 1999 interview, lying in the 'Malkhana' (the store where case property is kept) of the Mehrauli Police Station, was desealed before Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kamini Lau, who permitted two compact disc copies of the same to be made, before directing it to be resealed.

Copies were allowed to be made after police made an application before the court stating that a perusal of the contents of the video was essential for investigations in the fresh case. According to the police, the recording was sealed in January 2000 by a city court and kept in the Mehrauli police station, soon after investigating authorities supplied copies to the accused.

Earlier, on March 6, without naming anyone in the FIR, police had filed a new case in connection with the sensational murder under sections 120B (criminal conspiracy), 201 (destruction of evidence) and 218 (public servant framing incorrect record or writing with intent to save person from punishment or property from forfeiture).

Lall was shot dead at a posh restaurant in south Delhi in 1999. In March 2006, a trial court acquitted all nine accused in the case, including Sharma, son of Haryana Minister Venod Sharma, and also hauled up the police for its shoddy investigation of the case.