The Delhi high court on Monday issued notice to CBI on bail application of suspended assistant commissioner of police S S Rathi, who, along with nine other policemen, is undergoing life term for killing two businessmen in a fake encounter at Connaught Place in Delhi 10 years ago.

Admitting the appeal against Rathi's conviction and sentence in the shooting case, a Division Bench of Justice R S Sodhi and Justice B N Chaturvedi sought reply from the investigating agency by November 13.

Appearing for Rathi, K T S Tulsi on Monday sought suspension of sentence, claiming that the prosecution evidence was in his favour. The trial judge, however, had failed to appreciate the defence submission, he said.

In his appeal, Rathi alleged that the trial judge had "disregarded" the statements of majority of prosecution witnesses and relied upon the sole testimony of Tarunpreet Singh, the only eye-witness.

Seeking quashing of the trial court's judgment, Rathi's counsel said that his client was near Mother Dairy, which was far from the place of occurrence, at the time of incident, and he had joined the police team, assigned for the encounter, much later.

Ten policemen including the then ACP Rathi were sentenced to life imprisonment on October 24 for the murder of two Haryana based businessmen -- Pradeep Goyal and Jagjit Singh -- at Barakhamba Road in Delhi on March 31, 1997.

A trial court, on October 16, had held the 10 policemen guilty under various Sections of the IPC including Section 302 (murder).