Court frames charges in Shraddha Walkar murder case

“From the aforesaid material placed on record by the prosecution, a prima facie case for the offences under sections 302 (murder) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of offence) of IPC (Indian Penal Code) is made out against the accused,” the judge said in the order.

“Accordingly, charge for the offences under sections 302/201 of the IPC is framed against the accused,” the order stated.

Poonawala allegedly murdered Walkar in May 2022. He then disposed of her body over the next several weeks. Her father filed a missing person’s complaint in Mumbai in October after being informed that Walkar was not reachable on her phone. He alleged that Walkar was murdered, allegedly on May 18, by Poonawala in a rented flat they lived in at Chhattarpur.

The prosecution also placed on record the statement of a cab driver wherein it was stated that the accused had “booked and boarded his cab and that when the said cab had entered Gurgaon … the accused de-boarded… along with his bag, in order to fetch liquor and came back and sat in the cab”.

The order stated that the prosecution alleged that a bunch of hair was recovered at the instance of the accused from the same place where the accused had de-boarded the cab near a wine shop.

The prosecution, the order said, also relied on the audio recording of a counselling session on anger management, which both Walkar and Poonawala attended virtually in August 2021. “It was alleged that the said voices pertained to the deceased and accused, whereby the deceased could be heard telling the concerned doctor ‘he will find me, he will hunt me down, he will try to kill me’,” the order said.

The prosecution also alleged that Poonawala had used a pair of scissors, knives and a hammer to mutilate Walkar’s body and dismember it. The defence had argued in court that the prosecution had only relied on circumstantial evidence and that no substantive evidence or material had been brought on record for framing of charges.

ASJ Kakkar noted that the prosecution had submitted material such as recovery of body parts, statements from the cab driver, recording of the anger management session, and the contention of the defence that it was not substantive was “without any merits”.

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