In courts

Raj Agarwal murder: order reserved on bail plea of accused
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday reserved its order on a bail application filed by the prime accused in the Raj Agarwal murder case.

The court has been hearing for long as the prosecution had come out with evidence that was to be produced before the bench that had granted bail to five other accused in the case. Now,the remaining accused Nadim Shaikh,a life convict,had moved the court on grounds of parity as well as lack of evidence connecting him to the murder. During the hearing,the court was informed that a skeleton was found in Daund but DNA tests revealed that the skeleton did not belong to Raj. When additional public prosecutor produced the Y-STR test results which linked the remains to the father of the victim,the court sought to know the validity of the test. The division bench of Justice Ranjana Desai and Justice Mridula Bhatkar,however,said this evidence was not produced before the bench that had granted bail to other accused.

AG to assist court in petition on judge
The Bombay High Court on Wednesday appointed state advocate general Ravi Kadam as the amicus curie to assist the court in a petition challenging the appointment of sitting judge Justice J N Patel as a High Court judge. Justice Patel was elevated to the HC on March 11,1996.

The division bench of Justice D K Deshmukh and Justice A R Joshi was hearing a petition filed by advocate and former sessions judge V P Patil alleging that Justice Patel did not complete 10 years as a judge in lower courts. He said as per Article 217 (2)(A) of the Constitution,a judge should complete 10 years of service as a judge for being eligible to be elevated to the HC. The judges said they wanted to hear the petition since it should not be felt that when there was a challenge against judges’ appointments,it was not looked into. The case will be heard after a week.