Uber case: Defence accuses prosecution of suppressing facts

Yadav’s counsel D K Mis-hra said in the chargesheet, a page related to PCR details had been duplicated on the second page. But, during the evidence stage, “a new second page was planted”, and the same was not provided to the defence,” he said.

“In the chargesheet given to me, on the PCR report, page 1 and page 2 are the same. But, during evidence stage, a new page was planted and the same was not given to me. Why did the prosecution hide facts from the defence?”he said.

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The defence also said “connecting witnesses” to the CDR have been “mysteriously dropped” during the recording of prosecution evidence.

“The woman’s male friend is a connecting witness to her mobile number. He is the one who gave the number to police, after which the CDR was taken out. Why is his name not in the list of witnesses? Since he is not a witness, how do we verify the number provided by him?” the counsel said.

The defence also pointed to “contradictory” statements given by the victim. “In her statement to police, the woman claimed that she had boarded the cab at 9.30 pm. But before a metropolitan magistrate, she claimed she had booked the cab after 10 pm and boarded it around 11 pm. The first PCR call was made at 1.09 am and police reached an hour later. But she says police reached in 15 minutes,” Mishra said.

The defence also argued that the SIM was not seized by police. But, the judge said, “What is the relevance of your argument on this aspect?”

The defence replied, “The SIM card was not seized by police. It would have messages the woman sent regarding the incident. How do we retrieve the content of the messages?”