Court dismisses transfer petitions of murder accused

A court here has dismissed petitions of an accused for transfer of two murder cases in which he is facing re-trial after the Delhi High Court set aside his conviction.
The court turned down the petitions of Jitender alias Kalle, who had moved applications seeking transfer of his two pending cases from the court of an additional sessions judge (ASJ) here on the ground that the trial judge, who had awarded him life term, had already formed an opinion against him.
"In view of the above, there is no merit in the transfer petitions. Both the transfer petitions are hereby dismissed. The record of ASJ be returned along with copy of this order," District and Sessions Judge S K Sarvaria said.

Jitender, who was tried in two separate cases registered with Keshav Puram and Mukherjee Nagar police stations in 1999, had been awarded life imprisonment for the murders in which ASJ Kamini Lau had pronounced orders on sentences respectively in 2010 in two cases.
It was Lau's predecessor ASJ Bharat Parashar, who had reserved and dictated the judgements in both the cases before his transfer as a joint registrar to the Delhi High Court on February 11, 2010.
A division bench of the Delhi High Court had termed the pronouncements of judgements in the two cases by the successor judge as "invalid" and had set them aside while remanding the matters to the "concerned additional sessions judge having jurisdiction for concluding the trial and hearing arguments and thereafter pronouncing judgements thereon".

Jitender, in his transfer petitions, had alleged that ASJ Lau, who is dealing with the case, has already expressed her opinion on the facts while passing order on sentence in these two cases and thus, the matters should be transferred from her court to any other sessions court.