The CBI court hearing the Aarushi case today rejected a petition of dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar seeking summoning of journalist Nalini Singh and CBI DSP Anuj Arya as court witnesses, and said it was a delaying tactic.
The special court asked the defence to initiate final arguments on its part from tomorrow.
"There is no question of summoning Nalini Singh and Anuj Arya as court witnesses in the case. This petition was submitted with an aim to delay the start of final arguments on part of the defence, so it is rejected," the Court of Additional Sessions Judge Shyam Lal said.
It said that Talwars' lawyer Tanveer Ahmed Mir, on October 15, had verbally told this court that defence would start its arguments from October 21, but now they submitted a new petition, which shows it was submitted with an intention to delay the start of final arguments.
The CBI court also referred to the Supreme Court's recent observation that the Talwars have been adopting dilatory tactics.
Yesterday, Talwars had submitted a fresh petition in the special CBI court seeking summoning of journalist Nalini and Arya as court witnesses in Arushi- Hemraj murder trial.
Talwars, who are being tried for the murder of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj, said in their petition that Singh had on a programme telecast by private news channel on October 14 said that she had been quizzed by CBI officer Arya in 2008 in connection with the case.
She was asked by the CBI about a Nepalese song being telecast on a Nepalese channel owned by her on the intervening night of May 15-16, 2008, when the double murder occurred.
According to the petition, Nalini had said that after she gave details of Nepalese songs being telecast on that fateful night, Arya told her that the information provided by her matched with the revelations made by servants during their narco test.
