Dr Gupta handled Shivade's blows with quite some equanimity... So it was often only Shivade down in the mud pit, egging and enticing the doctor to join the fight, while Dr Gupta cautiously kept to the sidelines, barely stepping a toe into the mud.
'Dalvi, you are saying you asked a question, but don't remember the answer?' asks Pasbola incredulously. 'Yes.' 'You are lying.'
When the hearings resume January 3, you wonder how many things will change and how many things will remain forever the same, as the Sheena Bora trial moves ahead.
'After Indrani's arrest did you go to the police and say I did this kind of forgery?'
BCCI official Ratnakar Shetty will discuss with the two judges appointed to inquire into the complaints against Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra -- the owners of CSK and Rajasthan Royals -- the 'preferred mode of operation' in the IPL-6 spot-fixing and betting scandal.
That answer, the strangest of all till date in this courtroom, set off a ripple of excitement, surprise and muted amusement among those present, including Accused No 1 Indrani Mukerjea.
Reports show that she had a significant increase in the level of benzodiazepine, a class of anti-depressants.
Balbinder Singh Dhami, who has played an inspector, for over a year, in The Zee Horror Show, took on the role of a witness on Monday. It was a part he had no experience of.
'Indrani gave a mirthless laugh on spying The Suitcase, from the accused enclosure and, in sign language, gestured the impossibility of anyone fitting in such a small bag.'
Finally to end the dispute, Sharma threatened to show her shoes. Pasbola declared regally that he would like to forgo that particular honour. Sharma ignored him. Instead, she bent down, took off her shoe and triumphantly held her prize aloft, and said delightedly, "Yeh dekhiye! (Have a look!)"
Shivade then asked if the skeleton finally came out of the ground in many parts. It was difficult not to gasp aloud at that revelation. Bhagat said that was true.
Indrani chose at that moment to wave a folded chit from the accused enclosure. It distracted Bharti, who looked at her sharply for a split second before turning back to Pasbola. The chit was collected from Indrani and her lawyer Gunjan Mangla slipped it to Pasbola. He looked at it, quietly laughed in disbelief and continued with his cross examination.
Mekhail delivered the most deliberate heart-tugging line of the day: "If a son asks his mother for money is wrong, then tell me." At the back Indrani gave one of her most beaming smiles that was meant to convey the exact opposite. This was no mother happy that her son had said he turned to her when he needed money because she was his mother.
Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
More noticeable than the hue of his shirt was his mast style in the witness box. He seemed to be reinventing the truth every few minutes. He yarned on and on, navigating his testimony further and further away from the facts, but he never lost his aplomb.
This week was the first time Peter and Indrani appeared in court no longer married, footloose and fancy free once again, even if in jail.
On Thursday, Indrani will be obligated to change into the green uniform sari she receives visitors in, as per jail rules, and meet the gentlemen from the income tax department. She may also at some point on Thursday video conference with Delhi in the INX Media-Karti Chidambaram case where she might become an approver.
The ripping off the lid, that Mekhail did, on the chain of episodes that lead up to his sister's murder, while condemning Indrani for her actions, for the first time, paradoxically, allowed a more human -- if flawed and complicated -- picture to emerge of Indrani, allegedly The Woman Who Killed Her Own Daughter and shocked a nation.
He was getting fruits, but no implement to cut them with. He told the judge, sadly: "I have tried and it is very difficult, your honour." His statement quickly brought up the imagery of Peter trying to cut a pineapple with his teeth or a papaya with a pen or a toothbrush.
Recalling the planned move, former national selector Raja Venkat told PTI that the idea to elevate Kohli was prompted by a string of poor results during the tour of Australia at that time.
The Mukerjeas' former driver could remember every detail of Sheena Bora's alleged murder five years ago, including on what day he took Indrani to the beauty parlour, and the brands of liquor he bought, but was unable to recall anything subsequently or more recently...
Pasbola had a number of queries about the nails of the corpse found at Gagode Khurd. Did it have nails? Nails, in a case of strangulation, are key because they often have particles and skin beneath them to show the victim had been grasping something as s/he was strangled.
It is not often that Goswami's Nation-Wants-to-Know shows become material evidence in a murder trial no less. Nor was it something CBI Special Judge J C Jagdale was wildly enthused about. It had to be done because as he put it to CBI Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil caustically: "Your witnesses gave interviews to channels about a serious crime."
The Bombay High Court on Tuesday declared the probe panel formed by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), looking into allegations of spot-fixing during the sixth edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL), as illegal and unconstitutional.
The warmest reception came from his soon-to-be ex wife Indrani, who on spying him getting out of the lift, muttered an "Oh dear!" and walked over to him, trailed by her police guards, wreathed in high-wattage smiles.
Happy with her latest move, Indrani departed from Courtroom 51 with a spring in her step. The woman who hopped up into the jail truck was a cheerful one.
Ever since Indrani's bail plea was denied by the judge her security has been stepped up. The message was clear. If she felt that unsafe she could get all the security she needed. But in jail she stayed.
Dramatic minutes like the sentencing by a judge or a round of artful cross examination hog all the attention in a courtroom. But more noteworthy and infinitely more memorable are the human moments -- Like when a brother and sister hug before a judge. Or the steady support between a husband and a wife in court.
'As Rai spoke, in an unbelievably dead pan, almost off-the-cuff tone, about helping plan the murder of two youngsters, drugging them with vodka and whiskey spiked with dava (medicine), smothering one, dragging a body in rigor mortis out of a car, burning a corpse, destroying evidence, and so on, it felt like he was discussing nothing more surprising than the intricacies of the weather.'
Indrani also claimed that she was threatened of sexual assault after the death of a convict sparked protest in the prison.
As Indrani, Sanjeev Khanna and Peter pass cupboard no 6 -- where the skull is stored -- what thoughts pass through their mind?
After 800 days, is it a little clearer that Accused No 1 through 4 are responsible for her death?
One couldn't help feeling a certain melancholy viewing these now vagrant documents and photographs that would never be rightfully cherished. The pictures spoke to you. They offered slices of extinguished lives. They breathed sadness too, for what could have been and will never be. The sweet promises that Life made and insolently, arrogantly never kept.
'I kept photographs of everyone. Because I was working for them.' 'Madam, Saab...' Shyamvar Rai, the approver in the case, said in a tone that tried to suggest that that would be a routine practice for a driver.
It will be his fifth birthday in jail as an undertrial. He was arrested two days before his birthday in 2015. Tuesday also marked Peter's fourth year in jail.
Singh and Badami subsequently took Waghmare to a corner of the corridor outside, where others have no access, and gave him a lecture. The conversation was largely inaudible, except for a phrase here or there. The thrust was unmistakable. Waghmare had to learn not to give such detailed answers to the defence.
She continued to cry, harder, feebly dabbed her eyes with the handkerchief she had received, and declared painfully: "He is hurting my emotions!"
Then came the electrifying climax of Tuesday's hearing. Pasbola showed Sharma copies of cheques that had been deposited at the bank with Indrani's signature on them. He accused Sharma of forging Indrani's signature and collecting the money for herself. In the back Indrani stood up in the accused box and very pointedly nodded her head up and down and mouthed, "She did!".
Devulkar had a certain abnormal vagueness about him that was unreal and defied belief. That came across in both his slightly too easy-going, extra-cooperative manner and the ragged nature of his testimony.
The software had, perhaps unknown to Dr Tripathi, tracked the changes he had made. The 'morph track' feature of the software provided a trail of what had been done and also indicated that the doctor had, it seemed, opted to morph Sheena's face with the provided skull, much in the same manner that Fantamorph can turn a woman into a cheetah.
As he was giving evidence, Dr Matcheswalla peremptorily summoned the CBI representative over to the witness box and whispered something. Indrani Mukerjea's advocate Sudeep Pasbola immediately cut in, wondering what he was up to: "Please, please, please." Dr Matcheswalla, looking innocently startled, said: "I was asking if I can order for tea."
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