39 petitions filed by accused to delay trial

“This is one of the rare cases in which so many petitions were filed by the accused in different courts and the only purpose was to delay the trial proceeding. It shows that since the beginning,the defence did not co-operate to conclude the trial,” said advocate Abhishek Ranjan,who assisted Special Public Prosecutor I B Singh. They challenged interim orders of the court,the appointment of Singh and Ranjan,sought transfer of the case,sought several adjournments and even moved applications for virtually reopening of the case after the court had fixed a date for judgement.

In contrast,the prosecution had filed only one petition,while engineer Manoj Gupta’s wife Shashi Gupta filed two. All three were filed in the Supreme Court to challenge the High Court orders,which were in favour of the accused. In all three,the Supreme Court set aside the HC order. “The petitions filed by the defence were calculated to linger and delay the trial,” said Singh.

Three petitions of accused Manoj Awasthi,Yogendra Dohrey,Santosh Tiwari,and Ram Babu,which were allowed by the High Court and which the prosecution did not challenge in the Supreme Court,were filed after the trial court had fixed the judgement for April 15. They alleged that they were not given adequate

opportunity to defend themselves. These petitions came at a time when trial judge Virendra Kumar’s transfer orders had been issued and April 15 was the day when he was supposed to hand over charge to a successor. The calculation behind the petitions was obvious. If the judgement was not delivered that day,a new judge would take over and,obviously,the proceedings would have to start all over again.

While opposing the petitions in the High Court,the prosecution pointed out that the defence did not use the opportunities given to them and kept delaying the proceedings. The court allowed the accused three days to submit their arguments,but made it clear that there will be no further adjournment. On the administrative side,the High Court allowed the trial judge to stay on for three more months. But the accused were not deterred. Accused Yogendra Dohrey and BSP MLA Shekhar Tiwari moved two more petitions in the HC. Dohrey urged that the case should be shifted to another court as the judge had already made up his mind and dictated the judgement,which the High Court had stayed. Tiwari prayed for quashing of the notification staying the transfer of judge Virendra Kumar. The HC dismissed both the petitions.

An attempt was made to stall the matter in the trial court also. The accused requested for summoning Munna Singh Chauhan who wrote the application for the victim’s family and which was later signed by the slain engineer’s wife and formed the basis of the FIR.

In another application,the MLA and others,including Vinay Tiwari and Manoj Awasthi,requested the court to summon contractor RK Bajpai and start the trial all over again. According to the prosecution,engineer Manoj Kumar Gupta had stopped payment of Rs 46 lakh to Bajpai who was close to the MLA.