Delhi court reserves order on revision petition by Nirbhaya convict's father

A Delhi court on Monday reserved its order on a revision petition filed by the father of one of the convicts in Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, challenging a magistrate order which had dismissed the application questioning credibility of the sole witness in the matter.

Session Judge Ajay Kumar Jain reserved his order after hearing arguments from both the sides and will pass an order in the matter at 4 pm today.

The petition was filed by the father of convict Pawan Kumar Gupta.

Recently, Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (ACMM) Sudhir Kumar Sirohi had dismissed an application filed by the convict's parents alleging that the sole witness in the Nirbhaya case was tutored and is not credible as he took a bribe to give interviews to news channels.

 

During the arguments, public prosecutor advocate Irfan Ahmed submitted that the petition is not maintainable and needs to be rejected.

Advocate AP Singh, representing the petitioner, raised the question on the credibility of the sole witness and submitted that that witness family had a criminal background.

Advocate Singh sought that an FIR is registered against the witness, a friend of Nirbhaya who was accompanying her when the incident took place, in perjury for giving false testimony in the court.

Perjury relates to willfully making a misrepresentation under oath.

The petitioner claimed that the witness turned the case into a "media trial" by charging money from news channels to give interviews.

"This calls for an independent investigation into the perjury committed by him, being the sole witness, his testimony has strongly influenced the outcome of the case," the complaint told the court.

Besides Pawan, three others - Akshay, Vinay, and Mukesh are facing the gallows for gang-raping a 23-year-old woman on the chilling night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in the national capital.

The main accused, Ram Singh, allegedly committed suicide in Tihar Jail during the trial while another accused was a minor at the time of the crime and was sent to a reform facility and released after three years.